In a little over a week, our western lowland gorilla infant, Zahra, will be six months old! Overall, she is doing great and has recently started going on many little adventures.
We have seen Calaya reach into Zahra’s mouth and pull a hard-won piece of food out
Snake-necked turtles look like creatures from fantasy—they’re a little weird and a little whimsical, but they’re beautiful, too. Last October, our Reptile Discovery Center team welcomed four snake-necked turtle hatchlings, the species’ first offspring at the Zoo in 9 years.
For now, they only have to compete with one another, so the odds are in their favor
The hawk-headed parrot is a colorful bird found in South American rainforests. When frightened, it can raise its neck feathers, forming a fan around its head.
Members of the Psittacidae family have zygodactyl feet, meaning two toes point forward
It’s not easy to be low on the food chain. But white-bearded wildebeests face a threat even greater than lions and leopards. Habitat loss and fragmentation are causing an alarming collapse in their numbers, says Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute scientist Jared Stabach. In March, he traveled to Kenya to join University of Glasgow and Kenya Wildlife Service colleagues track how these fantastic ‘beests’ are faring when food is scarce.
What most folks don’t realize is that many wildebeest populations have experienced
While Sumatra doesn’t have the cold weather that we have here, our Sumatran tigers
A cousin of the mockingbird, these medium-sized gray songbirds are common across the warmer parts of North America, where they are frequently heard (but less often seen) in backyards and parks. They often return to the same summer territory year after year.
They can have a repertoire of up to 100 different syllables and their songs can last
Tall birds with strong legs, wild turkeys are fast fliers and residents of the eastern United States. Wild turkeys were domesticated in Mexico more than 2,000 years ago, although many members of the species remain wild. At the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C., visitors can see a breed of domestic turkey (which is the same species as the wild turkey) called the standard bronze turkey.
Fact Sheet Conservation Physical Description Wild turkeys have long, strong
The Zoo cares for five female Asian elephants from a few different family groups. Luckily, there are a few things that keepers can do to encourage them to build positive relationships. Learn more in this update from keeper Kayleigh Sullivan.
Bozie (left) and Shanthi (right) may be from different family groups, but they have
Challenge How can scientists produce research on environmental topics impacting local communities that decision makers in those communities can trust? In August 2016, scientists from the Changing Landscapes Initiative collaborated with community leaders in Northwestern Virginia to answer that question. This case study shows how CLI researchers combined community knowledge with scientific data to create a set of future scenarios designed to help planners make important land use choices.
Narrative “Strong long-term planning and minimal climate impacts have led to the
Whether you know them as red pandas, red bear-cats, firefoxes, first pandas, lesser pandas or simply “the other pandas,” get to know these ferociously furry animals.
Scientists have long debated the red panda’s taxonomy.
