One Hungry Prairie Dog And His Mate Is Not Happy

This is one hungry black tailed Prairie Dog. He can't eat his food fast enough. His mate doesn't seem to have a chance and gathering from the look on his face, he's not happy either.

More Wrestling Mania From Gorilla Lope And Grandma

As promised some more Lope and Bidi Wrestling action. In this video Bidi makes the first move in approaching Lope. My longest video yet and I hope you will enjoy watching those two play. Lopes big smile, showing his teeth, you can really see how much fun he's having. Climbing on grandma's back, doing his twirls, rolls and repeatedly "ambushing" Bidi. If only all the grandmas were this much fun :-)

Gorilla Lope And Grandma In Fun Wrestling Match

Lope the Western lowland gorilla youngster surprised me on the weekend. I never seen him have this much contact with Bidi his grandma. Lope is just full of beans. He's literally running rings around her :-) He slowly approaches her at first and then dashes and pounds on her. Grandma seemed to be ready to have a play and you can see both of them really enjoy the wrestling match. You can't help but laugh when Lope starts to move away from her and starts to circle around her with grandma moving around as well and watching every move. I watched it that many times, I got dizzy. lol When lope finally stops circling both have a stare at each other and I think Bidi is glad she can have a little breather.
Lope has one more pounce and then both are resting FOR NOW

Fascinating Hairless Chimp Shows He's The Boss In His New Habitat

Finally after years of planning, Twycross zoo in Atherstone England opened the new 1,160sqm semi-translucent Chimpanzee habitat called Eden, which is designed to replicate the wild environment as close as possible.

The first 5 chimps have now been moved in and the public got the first look at the new home. They have been in the new enclosure for a few days before opening to get used to their new home. Looking at Jambo, the alpha male with his sidekick Rosie, they seemed still quite unsure of it all. Looking around and just generally taking it all in. At times it seems like they are still stunned and can’t quite figure everything out. For now, only the inside is open as the bad weather prevented the outside to be finished. The landscape needs a bit more work.  Also they are waiting to move the rest of the chimpanzees over before they open the outdoors and as you can see in the beginning of the video, Twycross staff has already done a great job and the size is just amazing.

Jambo has a good look around and even comes up to the window to say hello to the visitors, while Rosie found a little side window to look at all the people. More climbing going on for Jambo and then he shows everybody that he is still the boss , the alpha male jumps down and runs forcefully towards the metal door and kicks it with his powerful legs.  Not just the once, he runs up to the door again and does the same, before he returns to be calm and just sitting there on the climbing straps.

The question on your mind is, why is Jambo hairless? People also call him the “naked chimp”. Some people think they shaved him or that he is ill. The truth is, the ape has alopecia, a medical term for hair loss and he had it since adolescence. He is now 35 years old and with his hair gone you can simply see how powerfully muscular he is. Being hairless hasn’t stopped him from anything, rather the opposite as he’s the alpha male and rules his habitat

Snow Leopard Cub Trying To Climb Wall To Get To Her Twin

It is National Sibling Day

Play time for the snow leopards at the Twycross zoo. One of the cubs got up to the wall, with her twin trying to get to her from below. She is having a hard time figuring out how her sister got up there, trying to climb and jump up the wall, but only manages to get half way up. It's only on the last jump to the left when she realises that it wasn't actually that difficult to get up the wall as her sister just walks off it. They have a little chase and a tumble.

Looking at them it is hard to believe they are only just a year old. They just grown so quickly.
The two twin Snow leopard cubs, both female were born in April 2017.This is the third pair for mum Irma and dad Suou.

https://youtu.be/O4Qbd-7VG9c

Did You Ever See An Orangutan Enjoy Gum This Much

Benji, the large Borneo Orangutan male from the Dudley zoo in the West Midlands, England enjoys to chew, but what can you do if you haven’t got any real gum? Not a problem for this clever Orangutan. He just rips of some cardboard from the box and uses that as chewing gum substitute. He’s enjoying it that much; you can hear the noise he is making and see his huge teeth while chewing. His mother obviously never told him to close his mouth while chewing. :-) In between chewing he has a look by having the piece on the end of his lip and glancing down towards the piece of paper. When all that chewing makes him thirsty, he goes up to the water and has a right good old slurp (make sure the speakers are turned up) . You would think he might have swallowed the cardboard after that, but no, he still has it in his mouth. You can see him putting it back on his lip to look at and then he continues to chew.
Benji had his 40th birthday on the 6th November 2017. He was born in 1977 at Duisburg zoo, Germany. In 1978 he transferred to Wuppertal zoo, Germany. In 1994 he moved to Dublin zoo, Ireland and in 1996 he moved to Dudley, UK. Dudley zoo has one other male called Jorong in a different enclosure from Benji. There is also the female orangutan Jazz with her 7 year old daughter called Sprout.
Dudley Zoological Gardens is a 40-acre zoo located within the grounds of Dudley Castle in the town of Dudley, in the Black Country region of the West Midlands, England. In the past couple of years more and more has been done to improve the zoo with some great new enclosures.
https://youtu.be/umaBo1o4BgM

Gibbon Mother Is Showing Off Her New Born Baby

Can you just make out the little eyes in the gibbons hair? It has also got its tiny feet and an elbow sticking out as well.  As the mom Meo climbs down from the rope and walking across the enclosure, she is showing off her new spring baby to the public and they are ecstatic seeing the baby for the first time. The little one is clinging to mom’s chest and you can see its big beautiful brown eyes with long lashes as she is holding her offspring tight to her chest. Her hungry baby is looking for moms teat to suckle.  Having a couple of failed attempts, it finally finds one and starts suckling. When it gets too cold outside, mom goes back into the inside enclosure where you can see the baby in moms arm. It’s little face looking around. When it moves you can see the fascinating long fingers. The baby was born this year on the 14th of March 2018 to mum Meo and dad Huggy and is yet to be named as the gender is unknown, but if you watch closely you might get an idea! :-). 

Their other offspring are six-year-old Penny and three-year-old Indah. The Lar gibbons are also known as the white-handed gibbon or just  Common Gibbon and are an endangered species as threatened in different ways like being hunted for their meat or as a pet trade, but mostly it is habitat loss.

Asante And Lope

Not too much happening with the gorillas. The weather is still wet and windy and they prefer the warm inside. They're looking a bit bored and Lope is staring at Asante. When Asante nibbles on a stick, Lope is his usual annoying self and slaps her arm a few times. He does make way when she wants to lie down, but then he starts to kick her repeatedly with his foot. Asante, as always takes it all in her stride.

Newborn Emperor Tamarin At Twycross Zoo

There were two new mothers with their new born Emperor Tamarin babies. On of them in this clip with what I assume is the mother carrying the baby on her back. I was lucky enough to see it with its eyes open and looking straight into the camera.

Baby Gorilla Shufai On A Roll

Baby Gorilla Shufai On A Roll

The weather is still quite wet and windy and the gorillas from the Twycross zoo prefer to spend their days inside, even though they’ve got the option to go outside at any time they want. Why walk when you can roll? Shufai is having some fun time and rolls through the enclosure, getting himself covered in the wood shavings. He is definitely on a roll and he doesn't want to stop.

First Steps Outside For Baby Gibbon

https://youtu.be/PwZyb-fdhnM

Penguin Manages To Keep His Fish Safe From Seagull

These are some slowed down action of the Humboldt penguin feeding time at Twycross zoo in England. The weather is cold and there is still some snow on the ground. The thieving Seagulls are trying to steal the fish from Penguins, which are becoming quite a nuisance for the zoo. When the first too penguins catch the first fish, they tear at it, it gets ripped apart and they share the catch. The next penguin isn’t prepared to share with anybody, especially not the seagulls and is holding on tied to his fish. The thieving seagull aggressively flies towards the penguin with its beak wide open trying to rip it out of his beak, but the penguin is not letting go. He turns away from the gull avoiding all the other seagulls and successfully turns round his catch in his mouth and swallows it whole.  One of the seagulls manages to get a discarded fish, but wasn’t lucky for very long as another bird snatched it of him.

Humboldt penguins are South American penguins that breed in Peru and Chile. They’re also called Chilean penguin, Peruvian penguin, or patranca. There Conservation Status is Vulnerable, as they are threatened by poaching, pollution and also over fishing.