In the heart of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is the California Academy of Sciences. It is part aquarium, part planeterium, part zoo. It also has a 108,900 square foot living roof. If you took a drone and hovered above the museum, it would look like a series of green hills but with incongruous portholes scattered about. You can't see this amazing eco-roof from ground level, but it is an architechtural wonder when you do see it. All the plants flourish in a mere six inches of soil, which is layered on top of foam and other substrates that funnel water off should SF experience a big rainstorm. All the plants are California natives. When the roof was constructed in 2008, one native plant, with purple flowers, took over and flourished. It liked that roof. For a while, the roof was entirely purple. But since then, a variety of plants have been introduced, and it's mostly just green. Underneath those portholes in the picture above is the Amazonian rainforest exhibit.
And next to Claude, the albino alligator, the rainforest exhibit was my favorite. You enter the rainforest dome, and it's 82 degrees and 75% humidity. After coming out of the crisp November air, it is quite a contrast. Above you, hundreds of butterflies, and noisy birds (colorful tanagers and macaws, among others), flit about. Below, are huge Amazonian fish, including piranhas. You don't quite feel you are in San Fransciso anymore.
But then there is Claude. He was born in a Florida alligator farm in 1995, and is one of perhaps 30 albino alligators surviving worldwide in captivity. None are known to have survived in the wild. He has pink eyes and white scales, and likes to sit on his heated rock, quite immobile and oblivious to his millions of visitors. He was brought over with Bonnie, a non-albino alligator. (Get it, Bonnie and Claude? Cute, yes?). But alas, Bonnie didn't like Claude, and bit him. Bit him so hard, he lost a pinkie. So Bonnie had to go. Now Claude spends his time with snapping turtles. Claude is now 28, and 10 feet long. Every September 15th, CalAcademy throws him a big bash for his hatch day. I guess it's not a bad life.
