Bringing the Zoo to You – 2023

And that’s a wrap! We closed out our weekly Facebook Live series for the year with an update on our growing capybara family. Check out this week’s livestream to see the fun. We can’t wait to see you again in January!

Happy #CougarRedFriday! Students, come out to the Zoo today to see Shasta VII and Louie guard your University of Houston class rings until 3pm. See more of our cougar duo on this week’s livestream.

🥬🥕 🍎🍠 As you get ready for your Thanksgiving feasts, our Animal Nutrition team prepares diets for 6,000 animals here at Houston Zoo every day of the year. Their day starts at 5am and there are usually 3 team members in the kitchen working on hoofstock, primates, and non-primate diets.

We’re celebrating the fall season with a pumpkin feast! Spot our Galápagos tortoises when you visit our Galápagos Islands exhibit. They can blend into their environment and almost appear like rocks.

Our giraffe herd includes our male Zawadi, and three females, Asali, Gigi, and Kamili. At six years old, Zawadi hasn’t quite reached his full height and can be up to 18 feet tall, with a third of his height being the length of his neck.

Did you know that lemurs are ONLY found in Madagascar? 🌍 We recently had our lemur conservation partner Dr. Jonah, join our Primate keeper Reid in this week’s Facebook live. Your visit to the zoo helps support Dr. Jonah and our other partners world-wide to help save animals in the wild.  

#WorldLemurDay 

Native to the deep, dense rainforests in the Congo, okapi are an endangered species that was the last large mammal discovered in Africa. You can help protect okapi by recycling your electronics to reduce the need for more materials to be mined in their native habitat. 

Shanti is 33 and her keepers prepared a few pumpkin treats to celebrate her birthday. Don’t miss Zoo Boo presented by King & Spalding this month to see our animals with pumpkin enrichment.

The alligator lizard gets their name from the alligator-like scales on their back. It looks very similar to what you find on larger crocodilians! You can see these arboreal guys hanging out on their perch at their exhibit inside the Reptile & Amphibian House. 🦎 🐢 🐍
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El nombre de la lagartija arbórea mexicana viene de las escamas en su espalda que son parecidas a las de un caimán. ¡Son muy similares a los que se encuentran en los cocodrilos grandes! Pueden ver a estos arbóreos colgados en sus perchas en su exhibición dentro de la casa de reptiles y anfibios. 

#HispanicHeritageMonth 

🕷 Don’t be fooled by their appearance! The salmon pink bird-eating tarantula and golden silk orb
weaver are essential to the ecosystem by eating pests all around us. Learn more about
what makes these guys great by watching the livestream.

Say hello to our pumpkin spice crew, Také and Willow! Nicknamed “fire cats” because of their reddish-brown color, you can find our duo usually snoozing in the tree stump or on the high perches in their exhibit, especially Willow.

Did you know that Grand Cayman blue iguanas have a unique adaptation to help them regulate water in their body? They can spray salt from their nostrils to help stay cool and not drink as much water since they’re native to dryer habitats. 

Duiker means “diver” in Dutch. Duikers are known to dive into bushes to hide from predators. See Tiffany and her parents, Vlad and Seana, in their exhibit next to zebras and bongos.

🐾 Saturday is going to be a paw-some day because it’s #WorldAfricanPaintedDogDay! Come out to see our trio of painted dog brothers at our Meet the Keeper Talk presented by Phillips 66 at 11:30am. In the meantime, learn more about our dog pack on this week’s livestream.

Pizza party! Takai’s animal care team prepped a fun pizza party palooza for his 17th birthday. Pizzas included biscuits, smashed bananas, yogurt, and applesauce. 

Our blue-throated macaws flock consists of six female birds. Macaws have a zebra-striped pattern underneath their eyes that is unique to each bird. Learn more about our colorful flock and see them enjoy some tasty kabobs and peanuts on this week’s livestream!

We love the llama drama! Yzma is the newest addition of our Children’s Zoo farm area. She’s 10 months old and her MO is to do whatever her “big sister,” Fiesta, does.

Bonus: See our llamas up close in our newest animal encounter. Book now! 

This week, our Malayan tiger, Berani, cooled off with an ice popsicle treat from his animal care team. During the summer, you can spot our striped friend in his pool. Remember to join us this Saturday at 11:30 am for a special Meet the Keeper Talk presented by Phillips66, as we celebrate #InternationalTigerDay.

Sea turtle surgery success! Three hours and 50 fibropapilloma (FP) tumors later, Merida is recovering back in Galveston with our partners at Texas A&M Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research before she’s cleared for release back into the wild. Read more about her story and the care our vet clinic team provided for her: bit.ly/3pQmERA

We don’t love one more than the otter! 🦦 Come see our Asian-small clawed otters, Athena and Danh Tu during your next Zoo visit! It’ll be a fun AC break inside Carruth Natural Encounters! 

Meet Marv! Our newest white-cheeked gibbon was born to first-time parents, Max and Ting, five weeks ago. White-cheeked gibbons are born with the instinct to grip onto mom and will do so for quite a few months. You can see our gibbon family in Wortham World of Primates.

Our second oldest female Asian elephant, Tess, turns 40 tomorrow! Today, her animal care team threw her a pool party and she received a full-size watermelon, chopped apples, and more snacks. Tess weighs 7,000 pounds, and an elephant can easily eat about 200 pounds of food per day. Tess’s favorite food is kale – who would’ve thought?

Every day is #WorldGiraffeDay with our herd! Our giraffes receive a variety of food options daily, including Romaine lettuce (Zawadi’s fav), kale, apples, sweet potatoes, alfalfa hay, carrots, and more. 

Our cougar cubs are growing up fast! They are currently 8 months old and recently moved into their new digs, the main cougar habitat. They work with their keepers daily on husbandry training to present their paws, stomach, mouth, and more.

The perfect ice pop doesn’t exi…

Our giant river duo, Ken and Merume, cooled off with two ice pops made with rainbow trout and catfish tails.

How can you tell this duo apart? Merume has a fully formed white throat patch while Ken has a smaller one near his chin. Each individual has their own unique throat patch pattern – similar to human fingerprints.

Don’t miss seeing our flippered friends during your next Zoo visit! Our California sea lion colony has grown from five to nine sea lions. Their new habitat in the Galápagos Islands is four times the size of their old habitat.

Spring migration is happening now until June 15. Find out ways you can help save birds this migratory season, including turning off non-essential lights at night, purchasing Bird-Friendly coffee, and more.

Teddy turned two this week and now weighs over 1,900 pounds, which is more than 1,500 pounds from his birth weight. He’s learning new behaviors with his animal care team to help with his own medical care, including blood draw behaviors.

Today’s forecast looked a bit clouded leopard-ish. ☁️ These arboreal cats’ tails can be as big as their body size! This helps them navigate through trees for hunting.

Visit our Chilean flamingo flock in their temporary home across from orangutans in Wortham World of Primates. They’ve temporarily moved while their current habitat gets an upgrade as part of our state-of-the-art Birds of the World exhibit complex. Our flock includes 54 flamingos, with 3 chicks named Domingo, Astro, and Orbit.

🥖 🥐 🥯 Knead an afternoon pick-me-up? Meet our five new capybaras: Biscuit, Bagel, Strudel, Croissant, and Cannoli. Capybaras are precocial so they come out well developed and were eating solid foods by day two. Stop by to see our family group in South America’s Pantanal.

Cuteness x 2! We recently introduced the two newest members of our meerkat mob, CJ and Bugsy! They join mom Mae, Dottie and Kit in the meerkat exhibit outside of the Carruth Natural Encounters Building. Make sure to stop by and say hi, at your next Zoo visit!

Rays, sharks, and fish, oh my! 🐠 🦈 Our One Ocean aquarium spans 40 feet wide inside of our newest exhibit, Galápagos Islands, opening on Friday, April 7.

Our brand-new exhibit, Galápagos Islands, opens on April 7. Our Galápagos tortoises’ group has grown from 3 to 10 tortoises, ranging between 40-220 pounds. Their new environment has two different habitat areas to roam, including new elevations, volcanic rock, a moat, and caves mimicking the landscape in the Galápagos.

There used to be more than 10,000 whooping cranes in the wild, and by the 1930s, their population had declined to only 20. Today, there are about 800 wild whooping cranes that migrate to the Texas coast from Canada, thanks to the Endangered Species Act and the efforts of Texans. You can spot our pair, Heiden and Angel, in the Kathrine G. McGovern Texas Wetlands. 

Say hello to our cougar duo, Shasta VII and Louie! At nearly six months old, they already weigh 35 pounds and are starting to receive bones as part of their diet. You can help save cougars in the wild by reducing your paper usage and using recycled paper content. Here at the Zoo, we use recycled toilet paper to reduce the number of trees that are cut down in cougar habitats.

In the wild, okapi can only be found in the Ituri Rainforest in the Congo. They are famous for being the last large mammal discovered in Africa in the early 1900s. Stop by to see our okapi pair, Sukari and Kwame, next to our Asian elephant bachelor yard.

Meet Willow! Our new female red panda is seven years old and full of personality. She is adjusting to her new home and can usually be found napping on the top right corner branch or in the tree trunk. You can tell Willow apart from Také because her white eyebrows blend in and resemble a “C” shape around her face. Stop by to see them during your next visit, right next to the Bug House.

More 💚 for Texas Wetlands! This week, our Water Quality team highlighted our amazing Kathrine G. McGovern Texas Wetlands exhibit. Over 150 species have visited our wetlands space since we opened in 2019.

Chillier days call for a pitstop to see our Asian small-clawed otters in our Natural Encounters building. Athena and Danh Tu receive different forms of enrichment daily, like puzzle feeders. This type of enrichment highlights their dexterity and mimics how they would find food in the wild by manipulating their prey with their fingers.

Visit the tallest living animal during your next Zoo visit! There are five Masai giraffes here at the Zoo, with 5-year-old male Zawadi being the newest member to join the herd last fall. You can get up close with them at our daily giraffe feedings at 11am and 2pm.