Zoos Offer Romantic Sex Tours For Couples

Valentine's Day is the time of year when zoos around the nation seek to woo a new adult audience with risque tours that couple champagne, chocolate-covered strawberries and candlelight dining with impressive facts about how animals do the wild thing.

Credit for the concept goes to Jane Tollini, a former penguin keeper at the San Francisco Zoo. Tollini conceived the idea two decades ago while watching her penguins' courtship ritual, which culminates in what she describes as "bowling pins making love."

"The keepers get there early and we see things that other people don't see," Tollini said. "And I went, 'My God, that's fascinating.' You know the old Peter Sellers line, 'I like to watch?' You kind of go, 'Oh my, my, my. How big? How many? How far?' It was unbelievable."

Knoxville Zoo says they have hatched a spider tortoise

The Knoxville Zoo says it has become the first U.S. zoo to successfully breed Northern spider tortoises, a subspecies so rare they can no longer be exported from their native Madagascar off Africa's southeastern coast.

The first young tortoise hatched Dec. 23, and at 18 grams and an inch long is thriving. A second hatched Friday and five more eggs were in incubation.

They are the result of a courtship between a male acquired in 2004 and two females obtained in 1999 and 2005. There are only 12 adult males and 11 adult females in captivity in the United States at four zoos.
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Video: Japan has baby animal boom

Newborn animals mesmerise visitors at a Tokyo zoo.

An unexpected "baby boom" at a Tokyo zoo attracts hoards of visitors, who have come to see the newborn koala, monkey, chimpanzee, giraffe, tiger and orangutan.

Video: Brookfield Zoo shows off newest Chicago bear

The Brookfield Zoo's tiny polar bear, born Dec. 14, has remained in a maternity den with its mother, Arki, since birth.

The baby was about 1 1/2 pounds at birth. It's now up to 10 pounds and is a little larger than a football.

Penguin a living 'piggy bank'

A Humboldt penguin at the Denver Zoo was getting ready to be shipped to another zoo, but the transfer was held up when veterinarians found coins in the bird's stomach.

Zoo officials said well-wishers toss coins into the penguin pond for good luck, but it's bad luck for the birds that can't differentiate a shiny coin from a shiny scaled fish and ingest them, causing stomach problems.

The adult female Humboldt, who was undergoing a wellness exam, had a blood test that indicated she had a dangerously high level of zinc in her system. Veterinarians had to remove the coins using an endoscope with a small net attached to ''scoop'' the coins from the bird's stomach.

Veterinarians successfully recovered 71 cents and pieces of a partially digested penny from the penguin's stomach. They said despite the inherent risks of any procedure involving anesthesia, the bird recovered fully and the levels of zinc in her blood have dropped back to normal.
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Cute Knut

First Polar Bear Born in Berlin Zoo in 30 Years

Berlin Zoo is delighted at the birth of Knut, the first polar bear to be born in the animal park in over 30 years. The cub spent his first 44 days in an incubator after being rejected by his mother. Now he's being raised on a bottle.

Knut was born on Dec. 5, 2006, the first polar bear cub to be born in Berlin Zoo in 30 years, but was rejected by his mother, the 20-year-old polar bear Tosca. His twin brother died four days after the birth.

Little Knut spent the first 44 days of his life in an incubator. Thanks to the loving care of the zoo staff, he prospered and now has "a good chance of survival," according to his keeper Thomas Dörflein. The dedicated Dörflein has slept in the zoo since the birth of the bear in order to provide round-the-clock care to the cub, and feeds Knut milk six times a day with a bottle.

Knut weighed only 810 grams (1.8 pounds) when he was born but now tips the scales at 3.9 kilograms (8.6 pounds). He still has a long way to go though -- adult male polar bears can weigh up to 800 kilograms.

Virgin Komodo Dragon Gives Birth

A British zoo on Wednesday announced the virgin birth of five Komodo dragons, giving scientists new hope for the captive breeding of the endangered species.

In an evolutionary twist, the newborns' 8-year-old mother, Flora, shocked staff at Chester Zoo in northern England when she became pregnant without ever having a male partner or even being exposed to the opposite sex.

"Flora is oblivious to the excitement she has caused but we are delighted to say she is now a mum and dad," said a delighted Kevin Buley, the zoo's curator of lower vertebrates and invertebrates.

"When the first of the babies hatched, we didn't know whether to make her a cup of tea or pass her the cigars."

World's first rhino conceived by artificial insemination is born

The world's first rhino conceived by artificial insemination has been born at Budapest Zoo, officials said in a statement on Wednesday.

The female baby rhino, born at 5:55 p.m. on Tuesday, weighed in at 128 lbs. "The little one seemed active and vital. An hour after being born it stood up on its own legs," the statement said.

The baby rhino has yet to be named, said zoo spokesman Zoltan Hanga, who added the zoo hoped to find a sponsor for her.

The mother, 26-year-old Lulu, had failed to conceive naturally, even when put with a male rhino named Easyboy. A group of international veterinarians from Germany, Austria and Hungary started in-vitro fertilization and she finally became pregnant in 2005.

Scientists Can't Get Sloth to Move

Scientists in the eastern German city of Jena said Wednesday they have finally given up after three years of failed attempts to entice a sloth into budging as part of an experiment in animal movement.

The sloth, named Mats, was remanded to a zoo after consistently refusing to climb up and then back down a pole, as part of an experiment conducted by scientists at the University of Jena's Institute of Systematic Zoology and Evolutionary Biology.

Neither pounds of cucumbers nor plates of homemade spaghetti were appetizing enough to make Mats move.

"Mats obviously wanted absolutely nothing to do with furthering science," said Axel Burchardt, a university spokesman.

Mats' new home is the zoo in the northwestern city of Duisburg where, according to all reports, he is very comfortable.

World's only known albino leaf-nosed bat born in Moscow zoo

An albino leaf-nosed bat, the only one known in the world, was born in the Moscow Zoo, the press service said Thursday.

"A leaf-nosed spectacled albino bat has been born in our zoo," the press service said. "Albino species are very rare in the bat family, and this is the first such case ever for this kind of bat."

The newly-born bat has been named Angela.

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Teeny Frog Saved From Extinction In Zoos

The Denver Zoo is part of an effort to save a disappearing frog species that has become Panama's national symbol of nature.

Scientists fear that sometime next year, the last wild Panamanian golden frogs will die. The species is being destroyed by a fungus that is also wiping out other amphibian species. But about two dozen zoos including the Denver Zoo have several hundred of the frogs in captivity.

The fungus was only the final blow for a species whose numbers have long been dwindling because of deforestation, overcollection and water pollution.

Pittsburgh Zoo unveils polar bear home

Two polar bears at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium should be resting easier these days. The zoo has unveiled a $14 million exhibit for the animals that includes a waterfall, a freshwater stream and a 150,000-gallon pool chilled to between 50 and 55 degrees. It also features a yard where they can play or nap.

The bears even have an air-conditioned cave, with a viewing window for visitors to peer inside. "The colder, the better," said Amos Morris, curator of mammals at the zoo.

Boxing Orangutans Freed And Returned Home

Dozens of orangutans forced to box each other in a Thai amusement park returned home Wednesday to start a new life in a jungle reserve on their native island of Borneo, officials said.

The 48 orangutans were flown to the capital, Jakarta, on board an Indonesian military transport plane and welcomed at the airport by the wife of Indonesia's president.

"We are very happy to get the orangutans back," Kristiani Yudhoyono said at a ceremony. "They belong to our vast nation, therefore we have to take them back to their habitat in a proper way."