Private preview

This page is a private preview built for Elizabeth Felton's review. It is not published, not indexed and not shared publicly. House rule for this project: nothing goes public without Liz's explicit go-ahead.

Elizabeth Felton Nemur & Friends

Animation · drawn artwork, not film of real animals

A drawn story journey · twenty stops · read aloud in about twenty minutes

Liz's Exotic Animals

From the gate at sunrise to two sleepy lemurs at bedtime, with a true, sourced note about every animal along the way.

Start at the gate Real animals vs. story animals

Before the first page

Liz's Exotic Animals is a storybook place. The animals in the pictures are drawn.

Nobody can walk through this gate, because the gate is a picture. There is no ticket, no address and no day out attached to it. What there is: twenty illustrated stops, one continuous story to read aloud, and a field note for every animal that says what is actually true about it and shows you exactly where that came from.

The story is written by a narrator, not by Liz. Where her own voice belongs, the page leaves a marked empty slot and waits for her. Everything a keeper says here is quoted from the organisation that published it, by name.

How to travel

  • Scroll, or press the → and ← arrow keys to move one stop at a time.
  • Home jumps to the gate, End to the goodnight page.
  • Open any Field notes panel for the sourced facts about that animal.
  • Set Motion mode to Minimal at the top for still pictures and no animation.

Your motion and quiet settings last for this visit only. Nothing is stored on any device.

22 species appear across the twenty stops. That is the whole cast — no animal has been invented to fill a gap.

The honest panel

The story world and the real facility are two different things

Liz's Exotic Animals is the illustrated story world on this page. Safari Bob's Exotic Educational Animals is a separate, real business in Florida with a public USDA inspection record. Most of the animals in this story have never been anywhere near it, and this page will not pretend otherwise.

Drawn for the story only

Not on the real facility's USDA inventory. These animals exist here as artwork:

  • giraffe
  • elephant
  • zebra
  • camel
  • tiger
  • flamingo
  • macaw
  • cockatoo
  • alligator
  • python
  • capuchin
  • porcupine
  • pony
  • donkey
  • goat
  • sheep
  • llama
  • barn owl

Eight USDA inspections across eight years record no big cats of any kind at the real facility — no lions, no tigers. The tiger at stop 8 is a drawing and nothing else.

Also on the real record

Three of the story animals do appear on the real facility's inventory:

  • ring-tailed lemur
  • fennec fox
  • kinkajou

Appearing on an inventory is not an invitation. There is a 2024 USDA citation concerning public contact with lemurs at the facility, so this page builds no contact moment for them, and none for anything else.

The real inventory, 21 May 2024 — 43 animals

As recorded in the public USDA APHIS inspection report for Safari Bob's Exotic Educational Animals.

Source: USDA APHIS inspection report (DocumentCloud)

Animal inventory recorded at the 21 May 2024 USDA inspection
Animal on the recordCount
Pale fox8
Fennec fox5
Sand fox2
Bat-eared fox2
Ring-tailed lemur5
Marmoset2
Bushbaby2
Cotton-top tamarin2
Red-handed tamarin2
Wallaby3
Large-spotted genet2
Patagonian mara4
Armadillo1
Kinkajou1
Woolly opossum1
Serval1
Total43

The story

Twenty stops, gate to goodnight

One story, read straight through. The same idea grows all the way along it: the more you learn about an animal, the more carefully you treat it.

Illustrated entrance arch with a carved sign reading LIZ'S EXOTIC ANIMALS, two guides with their arms open, a giraffe, an elephant, flamingos and macaws beyond.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 1 of 20 · The gate

One small plan for the whole day

The morning was still cool when the wooden gate swung open. Liz waited under the arch with her sleeves rolled up. Lily stood beside her, holding a notebook open at the first empty page. Far across the drawn hills a giraffe stretched into a tree, an elephant lifted its trunk beside the waterfall, and five flamingos stood in the shallow water like pink question marks. There was only one plan for the whole day, and it was a small one. Look closely. Learn one true thing. Then be gentler than you were before you knew it.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

5 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Animation · drawn artwork, not film of real animals

Animated band

The gate, moving

The same drawn archway with a little motion in it. There is no sound, and there is nothing behind the gate but more pictures.

Illustration of the two guides standing in a thatched bird garden with their palms held out low, a scarlet macaw, a blue-and-gold macaw and a cockatoo nearby.
Illustration · drawn artwork. Art study: faces are rendered off-model here

Stop 2 of 20 · The bird garden

Watching comes first

Just inside the gate, three big birds were already waiting: a scarlet macaw on a low perch, a blue-and-gold macaw above it, and a cockatoo with its wings half open like someone about to tell a joke. Liz and Lily held their hands out flat and low, and did not step closer. Watching came first. The birds turned their heads, decided the two of them were dull, and went back to preening. That was the whole lesson of the first stop. When you wait, an animal shows you who it really is.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

3 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration inside a rope-and-timber aviary: Liz wears a thick leather glove with a sulphur-crested cockatoo on her forearm while Lily points at a painted board of a macaw wing; three macaws sit on a branch.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 3 of 20 · The aviary

What a beak is for

Under the carved AVIARY plank, Liz slid on a thick leather glove before the cockatoo hopped up. The glove was not because the bird was mean. A parrot's beak is built to crack the hard shells of seeds, and a foot that can grip a hard seed can grip a finger by accident. Lily propped up a painted board showing a macaw's wing, feather by feather, and counted the long flight feathers out loud. Learning what a beak is for turned out to be the same thing as learning how to be careful near one.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

3 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of a timber rail above a turquoise flamingo pool; Liz leans on the rail pointing while Lily holds up a painted field-guide card of a flamingo.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 4 of 20 · The flamingo pool

Why the rail is kind

The path bent to a rail above a turquoise pool. Liz leaned on the timber and pointed. Lily held up a painted card of a flamingo so the drawing and the real bird stood side by side. One flamingo bent its head almost upside down to sweep the water. Another balanced on a single leg and did not wobble once. Nobody reached over the rail. The rail was not there to spoil the fun; it was there because a wading bird needs shallow water and calm, and calm is something a visitor can actually give.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

1 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Wide illustration of a bright flamingo lagoon with four flamingos in shallow turquoise water and Lily watching from a rail at the far left.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 5 of 20 · The lagoon

Standing still is a skill

Later, Lily came back on her own. She leaned on the rail at the far edge of the lagoon, said nothing at all, and simply watched four flamingos go about their morning. In the quiet she noticed things the busy first visit had hidden: the little stamping dance one bird did to stir up food, the way another combed oil through its feathers, the soft honking chatter between them. Standing still is a skill, and animals are the ones who teach it. Every minute she waited, the lagoon told her a bit more.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

1 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of an open-sided discovery pavilion with a log table of painted animal plates, a globe and binoculars; a zebra, giraffe, elephant and camel stand in the savannah beyond.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 6 of 20 · Safari Discovery

Four painted plates, four questions

At the Safari Discovery pavilion, a log table was covered in painted plates: zebra, giraffe, elephant, camel. Beyond the timber posts the drawn savannah stretched away toward mesas and flat-topped acacia trees. Liz pointed back at the zebra, and Lily laughed at the camel's sleepy face. Each plate had a question hiding inside it. How much does a giraffe actually sleep? What are stripes for? What does a camel keep in that hump? The animals in the pictures could not answer, so the two of them went looking for the answers themselves.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

4 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of a round classroom pavilion with panoramic windows framing savannah, plains and an oasis; both guides sit at a big round log table with their arms thrown wide.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 7 of 20 · The round classroom

The lesson comes before the kindness

Inside the round classroom, every window framed a different home: dry grass, high plains, an oasis with palms. Liz and Lily threw their arms wide at the middle of the table, because this room was the best part of the whole storybook world. Four animals, four completely different lists of what they need — shade, browse, dust to roll in, deep water, company, room to walk for miles. Nobody can look after an animal they have not bothered to understand. That is why the lesson always comes before the kindness, and never the other way round.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

4 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of a thick glass viewing panel with a tiger walking toward it through a rocky habitat; both guides watch from behind a timber rail.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 8 of 20 · The glass

A polite distance

Then came the thick glass, and behind it, a tiger. It walked straight towards them and stopped: huge and orange and completely calm. Lily's mouth fell open. Liz kept both hands on the rail. A tiger is not an animal anyone gets to be close to, in a story or anywhere else; it is an enormous, powerful hunter, and every safe look at one is a look from behind something solid. Standing there, the glass stopped feeling like a disappointment and started feeling like good manners — the polite distance that lets a tiger be a tiger.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

1 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of a primate habitat behind glass with rope climbing rig and three white-faced capuchin monkeys; Lily holds up a sketchpad with a capuchin drawing.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 9 of 20 · The climbing frame

Clever hands need clever work

Three capuchin monkeys were busy in the next habitat. One raced up a rope, one sat neatly on a log, and the biggest one turned a wooden puzzle feeder over and over until the treat inside gave up. Lily held up her sketchpad; her drawing had far too few fingers on it. Clever hands need clever work. A monkey with nothing to solve gets bored, and a bored, brilliant animal is a sad one. So keepers hide the food and make them think it through — a kindness that looks exactly like a game.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

1 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of a warm reptile house: a yellow-and-white python draped along a branch behind glass, a brown python in a rear enclosure, Liz holding a painted python card.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 10 of 20 · The reptile house

Quiet is an easy gift

The reptile house was warm and dim. A yellow-and-white python lay draped along a branch behind glass, and a brown one dozed in the enclosure behind Liz. Lily held her painted card up to compare the patterns. Snakes do not enjoy fuss. They read the world through heat and smell and the press of their whole body against a branch, so the two of them lowered their voices, stopped tapping at anything, and let the snake choose to move first. Quiet, it turns out, is one of the easiest gifts anybody can give.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

1 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of a cypress swamp with Spanish moss and lily pads; an American alligator rests on the mud bank while both guides watch from a railed boardwalk.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 11 of 20 · The swamp boardwalk

Looking, and leaving alone

Outside, a boardwalk crossed a cypress swamp full of Spanish moss and lily pads. Liz pointed. On the mud bank an American alligator lay so still it could have been a fallen log — which is exactly the trick. Lily lifted her field card and whispered the name. Nobody leaned over the rail, and nobody threw a single thing into the water. An alligator that learns people mean food stops behaving like a wild animal, and that is never the alligator's fault. So they looked carefully, and then they left it completely alone.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

1 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of a desert exhibit corner: Lily sits holding up three glossy flashcards, with a fennec fox on the sand, an albino python behind glass and an alligator in a pool.
Illustration · drawn artwork. Art study: faces are rendered off-model here

Stop 12 of 20 · The flashcard corner

The gaps are the good part

Under the desert rockwork, Lily sat down with three glossy flashcards and turned them over one at a time: fennec fox, snake, alligator. What did they remember? That the fox's enormous ears throw off heat. That a snake reads the air with its tongue. That an alligator's stillness is really a hunt. Getting every card right mattered less than noticing the gaps. Each one they could not finish became a small note to come back and look again — and looking again is most of what caring for an animal actually is.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

3 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Animation · drawn artwork, not film of real animals

Animated band

The canopy breathes

An animated pass over the rainforest chapter. Every leaf, limb and animal in it was drawn.

Wide illustration of a golden-hour rainforest canopy with mossy limbs: a capuchin on the left, a kinkajou licking fruit on the right and a porcupine walking the middle branch. No people.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 13 of 20 · The canopy

Busy being themselves

High in the rainforest chapter, nobody was there at all. Mossy limbs crossed a golden gap of sky. A capuchin sat in the branches on the left, a kinkajou licked fruit from a coconut-shell bowl on the right, and a porcupine walked the middle limb with unhurried, prickly dignity. This was the forest with the people taken out of it, and it was working perfectly well that way. Remembering that is part of the job. Animals are not waiting around for an audience; they are simply busy being themselves.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

3 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of the same rainforest canopy with the two guides appearing as faces low in the frame, looking up at a capuchin, a kinkajou and a porcupine.
Illustration · drawn artwork. Art study: faces are rendered off-model here

Stop 14 of 20 · The canopy, again

Good company is small

Then two familiar faces appeared at the bottom of the same picture — Liz on the left, Lily on the right, both looking up. They did not climb, or call out, or hold out a hand for the kinkajou to sniff. They joined the edge of the scene and let it carry on above them. Being good company to an animal is mostly about how small you are willing to make yourself. The canopy kept its golden light, the porcupine kept its branch, and the two guides kept their voices right down.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

3 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of a farmyard corral with a chalkboard reading KIND PEOPLE HAPPIER ANIMALS BRIGHTER TOMORROWS; Liz brushes a chestnut pony while Lily greets a donkey, with goats and a lamb nearby.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 15 of 20 · Farmyard Friends

Slow hands in the straw

The farmyard smelled of warm straw. On a chalkboard by the barn somebody had written, one word to a line, KIND PEOPLE HAPPIER ANIMALS BRIGHTER TOMORROWS, with a heart drawn underneath. Liz knelt and brushed a chestnut pony's mane in long, slow strokes. Lily laughed as the donkey stretched its nose out towards her. Two goat kids climbed anything that would hold them, and a curly cream lamb pretended not to care about any of it. These are the animals people have lived alongside for thousands of years — and they still notice exactly how they are handled.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

4 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of a farm paddock at a split-rail fence with a red barn: two miniature ponies, a goat kid, a lamb and a llama, with both guides leaning over the fence waving.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 16 of 20 · The paddock fence

Kindness turns into a habit

By the paddock fence everybody came to say goodbye at once: two little ponies, a goat kid, a cream lamb, and a llama looking down its long nose at the lot of them. Liz and Lily leaned over the rail and waved. The barn was red, the wildflowers were yellow and purple, and the day had begun to tip towards evening. The farm chapter ended the way it started — slow hands, quiet voices, nobody hurried. Somewhere along the path, kindness had stopped being a feeling and turned into a habit.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

4 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of an open-air keeper station with feathers on a sliced-log table; Liz holds up a painted barn-owl feather card and Lily turns her palm up towards a barn owl on a mossy branch.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 17 of 20 · The keeper station

What silence costs a bird

At the open-air keeper station, feathers lay spread across a sliced-log table. Liz held up a painted card of a single barn-owl feather and traced its soft, fringed edge with one finger. Lily turned her palm up towards the owl on the mossy branch and grinned. That fringe is the reason a barn owl can cross a whole field without making a sound. Once you know what silence costs a bird — every feather built for it — you stop shouting anywhere near one. Knowing changed the volume of the entire clearing.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

1 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Illustration of a lantern-lit dusk garden path with a glowing pergola; Lily holds a leather journal beside a seated blonde guide while a barn owl watches from a mossy limb.
Illustration · drawn artwork. Art study: faces are rendered off-model here

Stop 18 of 20 · The lantern path

Being trusted beats being close

The lanterns came on along the garden path, and the sky went pink and then violet. Lily stood with her leather journal held against her, and Liz sat with her chin in her hand. On the mossy limb the barn owl turned its pale, heart-shaped face towards them and blinked. Nobody moved. The whole day had been a slow argument with the idea that you have to touch a thing in order to love it. The owl waited there, unbothered, in the last of the light, and being trusted felt better than being close.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

1 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Wide dusk illustration of the lantern path receding into a pergola; Lily stands at the left holding a leather journal to her chest while a barn owl sits on a mossy limb at the right.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 19 of 20 · The journal

A note you can read again

Then it was just Lily, the lantern path and the owl. She opened the leather journal and wrote the whole day down: which animals need shade, which need branches, which need a warm barn, and which need to be left completely alone. Writing it down is not the boring part. It is the part that makes tomorrow better than today, because a note you can read again is a promise you can actually keep. The lanterns glowed. The owl stayed put. She closed the book carefully and turned back down the path.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

1 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

Animation · drawn artwork, not film of real animals

Animated band

Almost bedtime

A last animated moment before the goodnight page. Drawn lemurs, drawn blanket, drawn moon.

Night-time illustration of a cosy bedroom: two ring-tailed lemurs asleep under a navy duvet, one hugging a plush lemur toy and one wearing a pale blue sleep mask, a crescent moon in the window.
Illustration · drawn artwork, not a photograph

Stop 20 of 20 · Goodnight

Goodnight, drawn animals

And at the end of the day, in the quiet, two ring-tailed lemurs went to bed. One hugged a plush lemur toy. The other had pulled a pale blue sleep mask down over its eyes, because a lemur who has been awake since sunrise takes sleeping very seriously. Through the window there was a crescent moon, and on the shelf all the books still to come. Everything the day had taught them had folded down into one small thing: look closely, learn one true thing, be gentle. Goodnight, drawn animals. Goodnight, whole storybook world.

Liz's Field Notes

What is true about the animals in this picture

1 species here. Every fact below links to where it came from.

After the last page

What is still open

Liz's own words

Every stop carries a marked slot inside its field notes reading “Waiting for Liz”. The narration on this page is written by a narrator for this preview; none of it is presented as Liz speaking, and no quote has been invented for her.

The artwork

Twenty plates, all drawn, all shown with a visible illustration label. Four of them (stops 2, 12, 14 and 18) render the faces off-model against the house style, so they are used small rather than full width and are labelled where they appear.

The facts

All 22 species come from one sourced dataset. Nothing is paraphrased, nothing is added, and every line links out to the organisation that published it. Five domesticated animals have no IUCN entry, and the notes say so rather than guessing.

Stop 1 of 20

The gate