February 29th is the hoppiest day of the year! Frogs, cats, lemurs, and more. We’re celebrating our leaping and jumping creatures this Leap Day.
Tufted Puffins
Spend a few minutes by the tufted puffins’ habitat, and you might see them leap into the water! Puffins are excellent swimmers and dive to find their food: saltwater fish, squid, and crustaceans. They can hold their breath for up to two minutes and carry around 10 fish in their beak at a time.
Polar Bears
The 3-year-old polar bear sisters, Astra and Laerke, love to wrestle and play together in their saltwater pool. And this past summer, keepers even saw them courageously leaping off their island into the pool — making a beary big splash!
Black-and-White Ruffed Lemurs
Black-and-white ruffed lemurs love to swing, climb, and play in their treetop ropes and low rocks. In the wild, lemurs leap between treetops. Some species can propel themselves as far as 40 feet across open spans high in the forest.
Lar Gibbons
Lar Gibbon brothers, Aries and Orion, are very athletic! Not only do they swing and leap from rope to rope with their arms, but they can also do back flips through the air while swinging or do somersaults on the ground.
Clouded Leopards
Clouded leopards love trees: they hide, hunt, and even sleep in them. They can also leap between them – up to 15 feet from branch to branch.
Serval
From a standing start on its hind legs, a serval can leap more than 9 feet vertically into the air to catch birds. Shelton, the serval, lives behind-the-scenes at the Wild Wonders Outdoor Theater.
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