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Hi friends! It’s your friendly neighborhood petting zoo keeper here to tell you all about one of our incredible breeds of sheep found at the petting zoo in the Orkin Children’s Zoo section of the Zoo. Gulf Coast Native Sheep, also commonly known as Gulf Coast or Native Sheep, are a breed of sheep bred specifically for … Continue reading "A piece of shared American history: Gulf Coast Native Sheep"

With fall just around the corner, that means we are about to enter panda birthday season! Every year the Panda Care Team makes sure the bears feel extra special on their birthdays. We’ll kick off birthday season by wishing a Happy Birthday to this beautiful mama – Lun Lun turns 27 this Sunday, August 25! Some of … Continue reading "Panda Updates- Friday, August 23"

It’s been a very busy month for the Hoofstock Team! We’re very excited to have welcomed two new animals to our team in the month of December. Our southern white rhino calf was born on Christmas Eve, and our new plains zebra, Imara, arrived just a few days later from another AZA-accredited organization. Imara has been settling in nicely. She is currently undergoing … Continue reading "A busy month for the Hoofstock Team"

Hello from the Carnivore Department! The Zoo’s lions, tigers, and bears get a lot of attention for being big and pointy-toothed, but the exciting action in the carnivore area lately has been happening with our smaller, omnivorous animals – the binturongs! If you’re a big enough Zoo Atlanta fan to be reading this blog, you … Continue reading "Catching up with the bintlets"

It’s been a little while since we discussed the Zoo’s baby binturongs, or bintlets if you prefer. A lot has happened with these guys over the past few weeks, but I guess I will start at the beginning to make sure everyone is on the same page. Starting in early 2023, we started to see breeding … Continue reading "A Tale of Three Bintlets"

Inspired by a true story. Bart awoke engulfed in a pile of his slumbering friends and family. While he enjoyed the warmth permeating off his siblings, it was time to wake up! He wriggled free and gave a big mole-rat stretch, took a few steps, and let out a yawn. Today was going to be … Continue reading "Bart the Naked Mole Rat"

Hark, O readers of the Keeper Stories! I—Daniel!—have returned! And this time we’re going to talk about boxer crabs. Why boxer crabs? While we don’t have this species at Zoo Atlanta, I happen to be particularly especially very much interested in crabs, and thought this could be a nice deviation from the normal scaly or … Continue reading "The fascinating subfamily Polydectinae"

Reptiles just don’t get an even break in the public’s consciousness sometimes. For centuries, the public, and many biologists have dismissed them as cognitive and behavioral simpletons that simply are incapable of showing any interesting behaviors compared to the birds and mammals. Well, I hope that our wonderful readers of this column will immediately know … Continue reading "Cognition in Reptiles"

It is never lost on me what a privilege it is to be able to work with the giant pandas. I was recently reminded of this fact when I watched Yang Yang’s wakeup routine. Something unique to Yang Yang is that when he first wakes up, it tends to be a very slow yawning and stretching … Continue reading "Panda Updates- Monday, February 20"

Ah, Valentine’s Day. A whole day of the year dedicated to love. Most of the humans I have encountered have some strong opinions about Valentine’s Day. Some enjoy the idea of buying expensive gifts or dressing up and going out to celebrate with a fancy meal, maybe throw in a little karaoke and dancing too! Others … Continue reading "Be my Valentine: animal kingdom style"