Monday, May 28th, 2007 - 4:27 PM

Hogle Zoo

A few weeks ago we took our kids to the Hogle Zoo, where my seven-year-old son learned to wrangle metal rhinos.

metal-rhino-wrangler

About the time we got to the hot and stinky reptile exhibit, we decided to split up and I got to explore the zoo one-on-one with my son.

In addition to the regular attractions, we discovered thousands of tiny caterpillars climbing all over things.

standing-caterpillartwo-caterpillars

caterpillar-facedangling-caterpillars

We probably spent more time watching them than we spent looking at official exhibits.

While watching caterpillars, people passing by would occasionally see a caterpillar hanging from a silk strand (seeming to float in mid-air), but they didn’t seem to notice the hundreds of caterpillars on the fence. At one point, some kids noticed the floating caterpillar, yanked it down, and stomped on it. I yelled “hey!” and they scurried off without looking back. I’m not sure they even knew the “hey” was directed at them. My son and I expressed our disapproval to each other, but didn’t dwell on it long.

My son managed to coax a caterpillar onto his finger splint. (He slammed his finger in the bathroom door the night before. It wasn’t serious, and it’s fine now.)

caterpillar-on-finger-splint