Night Safari’s largest baby of the year officially has a name. Neha, which means love in Hindi, is the chosen moniker for the park’s lovely five-month old baby Asian Elephant!

The calf tugged hearts all over the Internet when she debuted in her colorful play pool earlier this year.

In addition to her daily routine of morning walks, naps and playtime with her favorite Elephant aunty, Tun, Neha has recently discovered a rather messy way to fill her afternoons – gleefully scaling the mud mountain, in her exhibit, with unadulterated joy!

Her infectious joy almost always prompts the other adult females to join in, leaving them all dolled-up in an orange sheen, in time to welcome guests to Night Safari when dusk falls.

While mom’s milk continues to make up her staple diet, Neha has started trying to munch on bananas as she experiments on solid food. She has been steadily gaining weight at a rate of 1-2kg daily (normal for an Elephant), and is now 352kg, more than double her weight at birth. Her human carers say she is an exceedingly playful and carefree elephant.

Neha is the offspring of Chawang and Sri Nandong. She is the youngest of six Asian Elephants (two males and four females), which call Singapore’s Night Safari home.

Photo Credits: Wildlife Reserves Singapore

The Asian or Asiatic Elephant (Elephas maximus) is the only living species of the genus Elephas and is native to Southeast Asia from India in the west to Borneo in the east. Three subspecies are recognized: E. m. maximus from Sri Lanka, the E. m. indicus from mainland Asia, and E. m. sumatranus from the island of Sumatra. Asian Elephants are the largest living land animals in Asia.

Since 1986, E. maximus has been listed as “Endangered” on the IUCN Red List, as the population has declined by at least 50% over the last three generations (estimated to be 60–75 years). Asian Elephants are primarily threatened by degradation, fragmentation and loss of habitat, and poaching.

In general, the Asian Elephant is smaller than the African Elephant and has the highest body point on the head. The back is convex or level. The ears are small with dorsal borders folded laterally. It has up to 20 pairs of ribs and 34 caudal vertebrae. The feet have more nail-like structures than those of African Elephant: five on each forefoot, and four on each hind foot.

To support the conservation of this majestic species, Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) plays an active role on the steering committee of the Asian Captive Elephant Working Group, and was instrumental in setting up the Asian Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpes Virus Taskforce. In addition, WRS has funded field projects for Management and Ecology of Malaysian Elephants (MEME) in Malaysia and ElefantAsia in Laos, and currently supports the work of the Elephant Response Unit in Way Kambas National Park in Sumatra.

Morning walks, three feedings a day, and attentive care are all part of an Ostrich chick’s daily routine at Franklin Park Zoo.

The chick, hatched on September 3, weighed about 2 pounds at hatching and measured about eight inches tall. By the time it is six months old, the chick will weigh around 150 pounds and stand 6 feet tall. The hatching is a first for Franklin Park Zoo.

Photo Credit:  Franklin Park Zoo

Because the zoo’s adult Ostrich pair has not been able to reproduce, staff decided to obtain an egg from another zoo accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, incubate it, and hand raise the chick once it hatched.

The not-so-little chick requires a lot of one-on-one time with keepers. Daily walks are important to encourage proper bone development. Diet, consisting of grain, greens, and chopped egg, is carefully monitored so that the chick does not gain weight too rapidly, which also ensures strong, straight leg development.

The male chick will be introduced to the adults when it is five to six months old. In the wild, Ostriches live in flocks that can number 100 birds.

There are four surviving subspecies of Ostrich, all native to Africa. Although all subspecies are in decline, only the North African Ostrich, which has disappeared from most of its original range, is listed as Critically Endangered.

Zoo New England supports the Sahara Conservation Fund’s work in Niger to protect the North African Ostrich.

Ostriches, which live on Africa’s grasslands, are flightless birds built for running. They use their wings for balance as they run. Their long powerful legs, flexible knees, and two-toed feet help them outpace predators and maintain speed over long distances. Ostriches can deliver powerful kicks in self-defense, and each of their toes has a long, sharp claw. Reaching speeds of 45 miles per hour, Ostriches the world’s fastest two-legged animal.

Male Ostriches are black with white primary flight feathers and tail. Females are gray-brown and white. At nearly two inches across, Ostriches’ eyes are the largest of any land animal. With eyes on the sides of their heads, Ostriches have a 350-degree view of their environment.

See more photos of the Ostrich chick below.

The last wild European Bison was shot in 1927, but the species has made a comeback thanks to breeding programs like one at Poland’s Zoo Wroclaw, where a male calf was born on September 19.

Keepers named the new calf Powolniak, which translates as “the slow one,” reflecting his relaxed personality.   The calf’s name needed to start with “PO” because he was born in Poland, according to naming rules dictated by the European Bison Pedigree Book, which tracks the parentage of each animal to maintain the highest possible level of genetic diversity in the population. 

Photo Credit:  Zoo Wroclaw

Despite their massive size – males can weigh more than one ton and stand six feet tall at the shoulders – keepers at Zoo Wroclaw say that their Bison herd is calm in nature. 

Three subspecies of European Bison, Europe’s largest wild mammal, once roamed the entire European continent.  One by one, they each became extinct in the wild until in the 1920s, only 12 European Bison and seven Lowland Bison remained in some European zoos.

After World War II, zoos began to cooperate to save the European Bison and Poland became the center of the breeding efforts.  Today, more than 5,000 European Bison live in zoos and wild areas in Europe, with a high concentration in Poland.   Once listed as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the European Bison is now listed as Vulnerable. 

See more photos of the European Bison calf below.