Crystal Palace, part II

I feel it incumbent upon me to open this appendix to Marc's Crystal Palace Park report by explaining to our readers that being referred to as an 'adorable mammal' is perhaps one of the highest compliments one could earn from him (grumpy misanthrope that he is)*.

With that in mind, here are a few more adorable mammals and other miscellaneous tidbits from the park which didn't quite make it into Marc's post.

Grouped closely together as one enters the Cenozoic in the Dinosaur Park trail are a family of Palaeotherium -- out of whom I only managed a picture of this individual above -- and a trio of Anoplotherium (below). Though they have been situated at one end of the lake in such a way as to evoke feelings of visitors happening upon them in the wild, their location and the growth of the surrounding vegetation does tend to leave them overlooked in favour of the more charismatic Mesozoic beasties, which is something of a shame.

I can't resist sharing more pictures of the Megatherium, even though Marc has already mentioned it. It's just, well, adorable. Obviously. And I can't help feeling that it looks for all the world as though it might have sprung out of a Miyazaki film.

My Neighbour Megatherium

Or, I don't know, Pliocene Princess Mononoke, or... something.

Nor could I lose the opportunity of sharing more pictures of the Megaloceros family. I mean, come on, one picture of them could hardly have sufficed. Did I mention how fond I am of cervids?

To bring us back to the dinosaurs, however, the park entrance directly by Crystal Palace station features this dinosaur train mural.

Whilst another appropriately themed one greets visitors on the side of the park's caf�.

Finally, Marc mentions not having taken a picture of the turtle-shelled dicynodonts in his post, so here is mine to hopefully remedy that. I'm afraid it's only their back view, but the plentiful daisies unfortunately prevented any good views of their heads from other angles. At least they're accompanied by several resting mallards.

*I'm kidding. Mostly.