Some weird and wonderful animals in Florida...

This is Rufus, the joey that I became rather fond of during my time at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo....Sadly Rufus was rejected by his mother and got rather badly injured so had to have 3/4 of his tail removed !!

I took it upon myself to be his Australian cultural advisor so spent my time with him informing him about his fellow Aussie mammals, the current political climate down under and of course, teaching him the words to the Australian National Anthem... The keepers had to hand rear him and that involved taking him home every night to bottle feed him every few hours. Here's Rufus in the front seat of the car....Some lovely turtles...
I'd never seen a manatee before (oh and don't worry it was only out of the water for a medical check up!!)
They like lying on their backs and eating the lettuce off the top of the water...
And I have NO IDEA what this thing is, but it's a cross between a horse, a zebra & a giraffe...Penguins...