Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Baby, we were born to ruuuuuuuuun. The ostrich may be flightless but with thick, powerful legs (seen in full glory here as the ostrich displays), it’s built for running over great distances with ease and getting up to speeds of 40+ miles per hour. Photo by Dennis Dow/WPZ

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

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications 2012 is the Year of the Dragon, and Tuesday was the day of the Komodo dragon . That’s because the zoo’s male Komodo dragon, Loki, turned 18 on Tuesday and the keepers celebrated dragon-style: with “cake” made out of ground meat topped with a mouse. Loki gulped down his treat with lightning speed as visitors gathered at the exhibit to sing “Happy Birthday” to him. The song lasted longer than the cake! While we often mark our 18th birthday as the milestone between childhood and adulthood, for Komodo dragons, turning 18 means you’re well past middle aged. It’s not known just how long the average Komodo dragon life span is in the wild, but in captivity, Komodo dragons have been known to live up to 25 years. By weight, Komodos are the world’s largest lizard. They don’t get to be that size just by snacking on birthday cake. In the wild, Komodos are known for their hunting prowess, taking down prey as big as Sunda deer,

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications With Valentine’s Day coming up, it’s a good time to meet the hermaphroditic Partula snail. Prior to copulating, Partula shoot “love darts”—tiny bits of calcium-based material—like daggers into their partner. No one knows exactly why. Some think that this is the origin of Cupid with his arrows.  Now there's a fun fact you can use to romance your Valentine. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications The results are in to cap our two-week, online contest to guess the combined weight of Woodland Park Zoo’s two hippos . Today’s weigh-in of 12-year-old Guadalupe and 33-year-old Water Lily revealed the giant pachyderms’ collective weight: 6,279 pounds with Lupe weighing in at 3,285 pounds and Lily at 2,994 pounds! Zookeeper Matt Mills works with Lupe on the scale inside the behind-the-scenes hippo barn. More than 2,800 people entered our statewide hippo weigh-in contest, trying to win a behind-the-scenes experience with our hippos and other prizes. The guesses ranged everywhere from 150 pounds to 6,000,000,000 pounds, but only two entrants came within one pound of the final combined weight, and by random draw, 42-year-old Alane Michels of Sprague, WA was named the winner! Alane was all smiles when we called her this morning to tell her she won, telling us " This is a dream come true! I grew up coming to Woodland Park Zoo an

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Ever hear cackling in the Tropical Rain Forest exhibit? Many visitors do not realize that intense sound is coming from our red ruffed lemurs . Red ruffed lemurs communicate to each other with a complex system of at least 12 different vocalizations that include low grunts, gurgling sounds and that cackle-like roar. Photo by Dennis Dow/WPZ

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Introducing Wonderfully Wild Wednesday , where we’ll feature some fascinating wildlife adaptation each week. Let’s kick it off with one of the zoo’s newest residents—the waxy monkey frog. I don’t need to tell you that the waxy monkey frog is awesome. You can see that for yourself… But I will tell you that this frog—newly arrived to Woodland Park Zoo—is certainly unique among its amphibian brethren. Most frogs have moist skin that is susceptible to drying out when exposed to direct sun for too long. But the South American waxy monkey frog is uniquely adapted to take in rays, allowing it to make a niche for itself in the hot, dry environment of its native habitat in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. So how does the waxy monkey frog do it? It’s in the name (well, the waxy part of the name, not the monkey part. We’ll get to the monkey part later). The waxy monkey frog comes complete with built-in sunblock, a waxy secretion