40 Adorable & Terrifying Facts about Zoo Animals

Steve Irwin was buried at his beloved Australia Zoo.

27. In 1996, a three-year-old boy fell into the gorilla exhibit at the Brookfield Zoo. The child was rescued by a mother gorilla (Binti Jua) who cradled him until the zookeepers arrived.

28. There is an island (Lambay Island) off the coast of Dublin, Ireland that has a population of wallabies. They are the descendants of animals that Dublin Zoo could no longer care for due to overcrowding.

29. During World War 2, the very first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

30. There is only one pig (Khanzir) in all of Afghanistan. His name is Khanzir, which is Arabic for pig, and he lives in the Kabul Zoo.

Snowflake is the only known albino gorilla. He was a resident of Barcelona zoo.

32. At the Edinburgh Zoo, there is a voluntary daily penguin parade, which sometimes gets canceled if the penguins do not wish to go out that day.

33. After dropping her 2-year-old son into a pit of African wild dogs at the Pittsburgh Zoo, Elizabeth Derkosh attempted to sue the zoo for negligence (and other things).

34. The 1889 World's Fair in Paris, famous for the construction and unveiling of the Eiffel Tower, had a "Negro Zoo" with 400 black people in cages as one of the attractions.

35. Many white tigers in zoos are white because of forced repetitive inbreeding and they are almost always born with genetic defects.

There is a disorder called "Zoochosis" that most animals get from being confined in Zoos, such as repeated pacing, rocking, vomiting and even self mutilation. These behaviors are not seen in the wild and are displayed only because of their captivity.

37. An orangutan named Sibu at a zoo in Apeldoorn, Netherlands rejected all attempts made for him to mate with female orangutans. He only exhibited sexual interest in his human female caretakers with a particular penchant for the blonde ones with tattoos.

38. A British zoo (Paignton Zoo) banned monkeys from eating bananas for health reasons.

39. The Pyongyang Central Zoo has a parrot which can squawk "Long live the Great Leader, Comrade Kim Il-sung" in English.

40. In 1949, India sent the Tokyo Zoo two elephants to cheer the spirits of the defeated Japanese empire.