Lazy, Lounging Monday ~

The Reid Park Zoo has two beautiful tigers - a male and a female. Sita, the female, lounges in her hammock. Baheem, the male, poses for a picture perfect portrait. To learn more about the zoo's tigers, click here.

Up close and personal with the King of beasts ~

This male lion was excited by a dog who was on the Reid Park Zoo's grounds. The lion was VERY interested in that dog! To learn more about the zoo's pride of lions, click here.

Conservation Collage ~

This artful elephant collage is part of the Reid Park Zoo's education, conservation, and fundraising efforts to support the zoo's elephant family. To watch the elephants, check out the zoo's webcam here.

The scoop on poop (elephant, that is) ~

With some humor intended, the Reid Park Zoo architect placed this life-sized, 3-D elephant butt near the restrooms. The little round sign informs readers that elephants digest less than half of the nutrients in their food. The rest becomes (and I'm quoting here from the sign), "a cozy home with built-in food for dung beetle larvae or a tasty meal for termites." Interesting!

Ahhhhh - refreshing dust bath

Elephants spray each other with dust to deter bugs and to keep cool. They were blowing around a LOT of dust when I was watching them! The elephant exhibit is the newest major expansion of the Reid Park Zoo. The zoo even has an elephant web cam so if you are crazy about elephants, be sure to tune in! To read more about the exhibit and these wonderful animals, click here.

Nice cool sip ~

As I was watching visitors feed the giraffes (see yesterday's photos), I noticed that some of the giraffes paid no attention to the carrot treats and so I asked the zoo staffer about this. She explained that one of the females, Denver, was very aggressive with the other giraffes at snack time and nudges them to stay away. If there are a lot of people gathered to distribute carrots, the other giraffes will venture over to the platform to get a treat. Otherwise, they browse from their tree top baskets (photo 3).

Mmmm - snack time!

The Reid Park Zoo has a really fun giraffe encounter at 10:00 am (weekdays) where you can feed the giraffes some tasty carrots. It is just amazing to be that close to them and they have really really long black tongues! Weird!!

Also check out the 3rd photo - the longest eyelashes I have even seen - beautiful! To learn more about the zoo's giraffe, herd, click here.