Going for the Gold

Zoos and aquarium educators have always been pretty skilled at finding ways to bring animals to the forefront of whatever is in our cultural foreground at the moment.  Remember a few years ago when "Pokemon Go" was such a huge deal?  My zoo - and really every other zoo that I know - was pretty quick to jump on that bandwagon, both in order to bring in the public and to steer at least some of the attention to animals and conservation.  One script that we can dust off every four years (two years if you count the Winter) is the Olympics.

For most Olympic events, there is an animal that puts even the best human competitor to shame.  I say "most" because there are no animal champions in beach volleyball or fencing, that I am aware of, but I can imagine gibbons taking to either quite skillfully if they ever put their minds to it.  Cheetahs and pronghorn can run faster than us.  Kangaroos and leopards jump higher and further.  Dolphins and sea lions swim faster and more gracefully.  Elephants can lift heavier weights (and if we're looking at it as a proportion of body weight, then ants and many other insects reign supreme).  Not surprisingly, many zoos make posts to show off the skills of their animals, some seriously, some with more comedy in mind.  Take this post from Timbavati Wildlife Park in Wisconsin as an example, celebrating their white tiger Diva earning a gold in their "diving competition".

With most physical activities there can be no denying, animals have us beat.  That being said, we can run faster than a lot of animals, climb better than a lot of animals, and swim better than a lot of animals.  We may not be the best anything without our technology backing us up, but we're pretty good at a lot of things.  We sort of have the Swiss Army Knife of physiques, Jack of All Trades, Master of None.  I like to think that, for mostly-hairless apes, we put on a pretty decent showing in an Olympics.  Not all of us, I mean...