So yesterday (which was Monday, July 23) I went to the Biodome of Montreal, tagged alongside with the Insectarium and the Botanical Garden with sister, my girlfriend and my parents. Let's start with the first place we did: The Insectarium.
So we started the day by leaving home towards 9AM, which honestly I was up at 6:30AM. We went over to my sister's appartment in Montreal which is about 20-30 minutes away by driving, drank my second coffee of the day then we left. We walked up to the Botanical Garden, but just beside it was the Insectarium entrance which is where we started. So yep, we saw insects and arachnids, etc. My favrotie part was of course: Arachnids. Sadly, to my disapointement, there wasn't many type of tarantulas and scorpions, but at least, they had my favorite tarantula species which is the Mexican Fire Leg as known by it's scientific name? I have no idea. Thing is, that trantula is just..beautiful. Other than that there wasn't much that I need to specify here, though the place was small, they still had alot of species of different kinds. Ya know, bees are fun to watch do their thing in their nest, but they always flew everywhere in the Botanical Garden lol. We saw some arrangment made to see ants travel food from one place to another and I mean..yeah I can see ants in my backyard and I've seen them work on Discovery Channel, but seeing them work that way, all following one after the other, seeing millions of em at a time bring back food and leaves and stuff for their hideout with my own eyes was something quite amazing. I also seen for the first time of my life the queen, which I must say, that's a fat ass! Mmm they also had that machine which calculated your weight in ants..like how many ants do you weight and turns out I weight something like 275 000 000 ants lol. Now that's pretty funny. Anyway, they had alot of different bugs, sure can 't remember all of em and I'm only saying bout the ones that quite impressed me, but with as much as I know from bugs, nothing was too great to really quite impress me other than seeing them in action in front of my eyes. They also had Black Widow spiders, which I hadn't seen in a while. It's funny to see one of the deadliest spiders alive being so tiny. I never would hold one in my hand, unlike a tarantula. Ya know what sucks? I didn't get to see any Brown Recluse, though that spider is mostly found throughout Europe, I know North America (some places in North America, mostly to the south) have variations of the Brown Recluse which is one evil spider. For those in Europe who has yet to know about that specific little fiend, the Brown Recluse is small, has a violon like shape on their back (as you can see from the picture) and are often found in dark and comfortable areas. They can be anywhere in your house! (sorry for all this Simon) They aren't aggressive in nature, but of course if you step on it or accidentally put your hand over it while searching for something it might bite you which you wouldn't want that to happen. It's venom sorta desintegrate your skin. It isn't deadly, of course unless you let the venom react for several days or weeks, but if any of you out there think they mioght have been bit by one, find the spider, capture it in a bottle and go to the hopsital. A Brown Recluse bite ressembles a mosquito sting, xept there's two tiny bumps instead of one and often will have a tiny white circle around the bumps. I don't wanna scare anyone and it doesn't have anything to do with the Insectarium I went to, but hey, now you're informed and you will be aware of it! Definately sorry Simon, you'll freak out over this lol. Sadly, I do not know in which regions of the UK the spider resides, just remember that it is in abso;lutly no way an aggressive spider and usually won't bite you, unless you're definately out of luck. Enough with the Insectarium, let's jump to the Botanical Garden, our second stop.
So yep, now that is a place which is consisting of 10 different exhibition gardens, from all around the world. It's quite a beautiful place, though it is huge. You walk in there, admiring the different plants and stuff, you really need to be a nature lover to go see this. There's really nothing to say about it other than walking through trees and plants and flowers from all around the world. I visited the Chinese and Japanese garden and that's bout it. We didn't visit much more because well yeah, it would of taken the entire day to see everything and we were all eager to see the Biodome itself. So instead of talking about the plants and tress, just go visit the link to the Botanical Garden and let me be! lol. On to the Biodome.
The biodome was quite fun. Basicaly, the Biodome is made of 4 ecosystems: The Tropical Forest (dude..it was hot as **** in there), The Laurentian Forest (that's basicaly what we have over here so it was quite boring), The Saint-Lawrence Marine Ecosystem (again, it's what we have here, but hey since when do we go underwater? There wasn't much to be seen anyway, was still kinda nice to see it in action though they missed a couple species underwater) and the Artic/Antarctic (my girlfriend's favorite place, she just loves pinguins, it's her favorite animal).
So to start off, we went through the Tropical Forest where we saw different sorts of monkeys (dude they were awesome!), perrots, we saw turtles, we saw alligators, sadly I never got to see the green iguanas since the forest is obviously green. You would walk in a pathway made throughout the ecosystem, was beautiful but man is theTropical Forest filled with moist and heat. Let's say I wouldn't live in there lol. That's bout all I've got to say, it isn't a big biodome after all and the Tropical Forest is the biggest ecosystem there was. But it's still fun to visit and see different kind of animals. And anyway, there isn't much to say about them other than what I saw. Oh yeah, I also saw alot of bats. Bats are cool.
Then the second area was the Laurentian Forest, which is what we have here. We saw some fishes, beavers, lynx, anyway, I honestly don't know what to say about that place since it's a forest type I can see anytime whenever I want since that's what's over here. Just go see the pictures on the site.
Third area, the Saint-Lawrence Marine Ecosystem, which was..not bad. We saw a bunch of fish stuck together in a huge water area, and the usual birds who lives on the sea. We also saw starfish and stuff like that which lives at the bottom of the sea. Bla bla bla, this in my opinion was the most boring of em all. So I won't spend a minute longer here.
And finally, the most awaited place by my girlfriend, Arctic/Antarctic. Whwta were there? Some birds, and most of all, Pinguins. Man she loves Pinguins. We spent over 30 minutes sitting there watching at Pinguins. Ya know what I found sad though? They didn't have much space. One of the pinguins was standing there against the white wall and stared at it for the whiole time we were there and it really saddened me. They should have made that place much bigger, with more snow and bigger fake mountains for them to slide on their belly and have alot of place to wander and swim but that wasn't the case. It really saddened me. We saw penguins hug each other and all it was kinda cute. My girlfriend was even tryna pet the pinguins right through the window lol. So that's bout it.
I'm closing my blog right now, ending it on this: I found the ecosystems to be particularly small, specially for the penguins, and wish they could of had much more place to wander around. Though I am not disapointed with my journey, it was quite fun and quite amusing to see all of this, I liked it alot. Some things left me unpleased, most particularly the lack of arachnids knoqwing arachnids count a really big number of species, and most specificaly, the lack of place to wander for the animals. Did dI say it enough that I was disapoin ted for the lack of place the animals had to wander around? But ya know, that's how it is everywhere for every place with animals in captivity. I was well aware of this problem our world has, and seeing it again with my own eyes made me realise it even more. I wish animals in captivity, though I am directly agreeing to the fact that they are in captivity and far from their homelands, should at least have much bigger places and areas that actually would feel for them as the immensity of their homelands. What is it for an animal to try and go further when you hit a wall? I wonder. Some say they don't realise it, but them people don't realise that animals too, have a brain and are intelligent. Sure, fishes don't have much recongnition and active memory, meaning no matter how small an aquarium is, by the time they reach one side, they already forgot what was on the other side, or that there actually was an another side, but for intelligent animals other than fish, it must suck, just like that pinguin who was staring at the wall, saddened he couldn't go further. But hey, I know many people don't care bout this, but what ya want, I've got a big heart about these things. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed my day alot. Alright, peace out!
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