Philadelphia Zoo

Colobus monkey Coleus holds her baby, Kiazi, at the Philadelphia Zoo yesterday. The three-week-old primate is the first colobus monkey born at the zoo.

Corona, the tiger cub rescued from a home in August, is doing well at the Philadelphia Zoo. He is on exhibit, having recently finished a 30-day quarantine.

Here's proof that you don't want to get a tongue-lashing from a giraffe. Especially a giraffe licking his chops during feeding time at the Philadelphia Zoo

Targets of poaching and victimized by a lack of prey, as few as 3,500 snow leopards roam the entire world. For zoophiles, it's a familiar battle - a struggle to save the endangered species one new cub at a time. Or, in Philadelphia's case, two at a time. In a first, two snow leopard cubs have been born at the Philadelphia Zoo, officials announced Wednesday. "They're precious, precious, precious children," said Tammy Schmidt, the zoo's curator of carnivores. "It's an honor for us as a zoo when it's an endangered species.

You can hear the animals talk at the Philadelphia Zoo. The newest exhibit there, "Xtinkshun: A Wild Puppet Xperience," is a multimedia presentation, featuring seven puppets created by the Jim Henson Co. that talk about animal extinction. The company is best known for creating the Muppets and the puppets for Sesame Street. Theatrical puppet presentations at outdoor stages, daily parades, and a short "mockumentary" film make up "Xtinkshun," which opened Saturday and closes Oct. 31. Most of the puppets represent endangered species, and one, Didi the Dodo, stands in for an animal that is extinct, sharing her wisdom in the hope of preventing other creatures from dying out. Didi is joined by Leo the Golden Lion Tamarin, Alfreda Cheetah, Iggle the Eaglet, Phibi Frog, Igor the Tiger, and the Douc Langur.

The Philadelphia and Pittsburgh Zoos on Thursday strongly denied accusations by an animal-rights group that three elephants, including the beloved Bette and Kallie, have been mistreated at a Western Pennsylvania sanctuary. Friends of Philly Zoo Elephants filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture this week, saying the two pachyderms, along with a bull elephant named Jackson owned by the Pittsburgh Zoo, were getting insufficient care at the International Conservation Center in Somerset, Pa. "The group making the most recent allegations is misrepresenting the care that Bette and Kallie are receiving and is not qualified to evaluate their care or health," said Dana Lombardo, spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Zoo. A spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh Zoo, which oversees the sanctuary, called the allegations "ludicrous.

Call her Abby. That's the name voters have chosen for the Philadelphia Zoo's new baby giraffe. Officially, it's Abigail, but her keepers have already started calling her by the nickname. Abby was born July 17 to 9-year old Stella and her mate, Gus, 4. The first giraffe calf born at the zoo in 13 years, Abby will be on display this weekend from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., the zoo says. The other names up for consideration in the public vote were Patricia and Shari. Contact the Inquirer Online Desk at online@phillynews.

For years, visitors at the Philadelphia Zoo have been walking right by the funny little house known as The Solitude. It's been locked up, easy to miss, especially when the boxwood hedges were six feet tall. But no more. After decades of being used by the zoo for everything from a snake exhibit in the parlor to executive offices in the library, The Solitude is well on its way to inviting company over. Come September, after $500,000 in renovations that include substantial hedge-trimming, the house will be open for group tours.

Experience cultures and animals from around the world Saturday and Sunday, beginning at 10 a.m. each day, at the Philadelphia Zoo's Creatures of Culture Series: Asia and the Pacific Islands. The idea was developed based on the Micronesian kingfisher and the Bornean orangutan, two endangered species featured in the zoo's new "Creatures of Habitat" exhibit, running through Oct. 31. Visitors can see Lego statues representing endangered species throughout the world and learn more about animals found in the zoo that are native to Asia.

If you've ever wanted to get up close and personal with an 8 1/2-foot polar bear, the Philadelphia Zoo is giving you a chance. Or how about catching a glimpse of a golden lion tamarin as it gets ready to swing through the trees? Or coming face-to-face with the delicate, jewellike Micronesian kingfisher bird? These are among the most endangered species in the world, and they're all here at the Philadelphia Zoo. But if you visit these threatened species and they seem strangely sedate, it's not because they're asleep.

The Philadelphia Zoo's storied history of lovable animals is known to all. There was Massa, the oldest western lowland gorilla when he died at the age of 54 in 1984. Gus and Stella, the young giraffe couple, can be seen necking in all seasons. Jezebel and Vinkel are the first white lions exhibited in the United States. Now get ready for a new star - Otis the Oriole, who will make his public debut this weekend as the McNeil Avian Center, the zoo's modernized birdhouse, opens to the public.

The opening of the original Philadelphia Zoo bird house in 1916 was bracketed by two significant extinctions. Two years earlier, in 1914, the last known passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoo. Two years after the opening, in 1918, the last Carolina parakeet died - oddly enough, in the same place. Now, as the Philadelphia Zoo prepares for Saturday's opening of its new McNeil Avian Center, a $17.5 million reinvention of the original facility, vice president Andy Baker hopes the story will have a happier ending for at least two species in its care: the Guam rail and the Micronesian kingfisher.

As the Philadelphia Zoo celebrated its 150-year anniversary recently, dozens of local citizens gathered outside to call attention to long-standing animal-welfare problems and wasteful spending at the zoo. For the most part, the media provided only partial coverage of the day's events, ignoring the other side of the zoo story. Criticizing a childhood tradition such as the zoo is about as popular as a root canal, but it's just as necessary. Questions and calls for change are the only way we move forward.