National Zoo, 2018

These are just a handful of the shots I thought turned out best from a trip I took down to Washington DC in 2018. Besides visiting the National Zoo, I danced at the DC DanceSport Inferno (DCDI) hosted at the University of Maryland while I was in town and it was great to catch up with a friend that’s been going to law school at Georgetown. We also managed to sneak in a little trip to the Hirshhorn Modern Art Museum.

I just want to make one clarifying point that a lot of people seem to overlook. While red pandas’ fur markings are incredibly cute, they’re also quite ferocious little beasts and they have pretty menacing claws.

I have been truly captivated with the alligator snapping turtle depicted below for a while now. The male alligator snapping turtles can weigh up to 200 pounds. Moreover, like tortoises, turtles like these can live exceptionally long lifetimes, possibly over 150 years. Read more about turtle longevity in this 1987 BioScience article, Why Do Turtles Live So Long?