Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications A fuzzy Humboldt penguin chick stretches out during a check-up with keepers. Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. What is more adorable than a penguin chick check-up? It’s tough to think of anything more wonderful to celebrate springtime than a couple of fuzzy, gray additions to our Humboldt penguin colony, especially the story behind one of these very lucky chicks! Up close with a penguin chick. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Two little penguin chicks received their first weigh-in and visual health assessment yesterday behind the scenes at our award-winning Humboldt penguin exhibit. Keepers John and Celine carefully weighed and checked each penguin chick, the first two of this year’s penguin breeding season. These desert penguin chicks weighed in yesterday at 9 oz. and 11 oz. Penguin chick on the scale! Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. Here you can see a penguin egg being candled. Keepers

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications Visayan warty pig at Oregon Zoo. This species of wild pig is coming to Woodland Park Zoo in May. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. This summer, two species of wild pig are arriving at the zoo—African warthogs and critically endangered Visayan warty pigs —so we’re gearing up for some majorly pig-worthy new exhibit spaces. The warthogs will move into the African Savanna biome in the former wild dogs exhibit, and the Visayan warty pigs will have a new home in the Elephant Forest exhibit near the elephant pool. Fencing surrounds the new Visayan warty pig space as the exhibit crew installs gates, watering holes and a mud pit for wallowing. That means a lot of grinding, buffing and roughing is needed to get these new spaces in order. You might not know it, but many of our exhibits are designed and built with our own in-house expertise right here at the zoo. The process starts with animal management and projects staff teaming up to d

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications Meet some of our newest frugivores! Our colony of Indian flying foxes perches under the roof of their house. They have long-toed feet with sharp claws enabling them to roost hanging upside down. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Six Indian flying foxes have settled in (under, actually) nicely at the Adaptations Building. While it may be hard to tell which creature the Indian flying fox resembles most, its large eyeballs, pointy ears, reddish brown fur, long snout, and wingspan of up to six feet, all belong to the megabat Pteropus giganteus . Not quite a fox, although certainly similar in the looks department, the Indian flying fox is one of the larger fruit bats in the world, weighing as much as 3.5 pounds. In the wild, the Indian flying fox is found on the Indian sub-continent that extends from Pakistan to Southeast Asia and China, and south to the Maldive Islands. Flying fox inhabit enormous trees such as banyan, tamarind a

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications with David Selk, Horticulture Don’t you love the early signs of spring? Even though it’s still chilly and spring doesn’t technically start until March 20, some of the tiniest hints of the season are already in full force here at the zoo. With a few clues from our resident horticulture guru, David Selk, I went on a quick hunt for early blooms. Here are a few of the finds… Hello spring! Above is the flowering currant ( Ribes sanguineum ). Below is a fresh green sprout from an Indian Plum ( Oemlaria cerasiformis ), little green slivers of warmer days ahead. This is a view from the side—some pretty intense architecture! This plant is native to the Pacific Northwest, ranging from BC, Canada all the way to Santa Barbara, CA. A sure sign of spring, Indian Plum is among the first plants to leaf out and flower. You can begin to see delicate white flowers emerge from the buds. People used to make tea from the bark, and chewed

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications “I got a fever of a hundred and three, come on baby…” We’ve all heard the term “hot blooded” in reference to unabashed lust, but this Valentine’s Day we are cooling things off with a little biology recap. Sorry, all you stud-muffins and flirtatious foxes, but using the term “hot blooded” is actually pretty uncool in the zoological community. In the recent past, hot blooded (or warm blooded) and cold blooded were ways to describe an animal’s thermoregulation. Within the last 30 years, studies in the field of animal thermophysiology have revealed just how wild temperature control is between each species, and it’s pretty sexy stuff! Flamingos pair up to create a stunning heart-shaped beak rub.  Flamingos are endothermic homeotherms. By constantly ingesting shrimp, these water birds keep their luxurious pink feathers looking bright; the shrimp also keep their metabolic rate nice and even. (Photo by Mat Hayward / WPZ). There ar