Giant Panda (I can’t remember who this one is)

The National Zoo in Washington, DC is known for it’s pandas, but I found many of the other animals more fasinating, like the fishing cat below. I caught her at the perfect moment, in the middle of a yawn.

Fishing cat turned into a yawning cat

If you have to get stabbed by a porcupine (I’m not sure why you would…), do not pick an American Porcupine. They have all these nasty barbs on the end of their spines that make it hard and painful to pull them out. Even though they look nastier, pick an African Crested Porcupine.

American Porcupine

Red ruffed lemurs are one of the most endangered animals in the world, because their forests are being cut down and burned for crop fields. They are also some of the largest lemurs, apart from Indris and diademed sifakas, with eyes that look like they’re peering into your soul.

Red Ruffed Lemur

Meanwhile, this monkey’s eyes make it look like he’s been possessed by a demon.

Golden Lion Tamarin

Black footed ferrets are one of my favorite animals, and this was the first time I’d ever seen one alive and in person. Unfortunately, I never got to see it do anything but sleep, although it did turn itself around between the two times I went to go see it.
The population of these prairie dog-eating animals were once thought to be extinct, until a sheepdog found a population of only seventeen adults. Captive breeding programs brought them back, although they’re still endangered.

Black Footed Ferret

Meerkat

Mongeese (I refuse to call them mongooses) are close relatives of meerkats, and even cuter. This is a dwarf mongoose. They also had banded mongeese, which are another of my favorite animals, but they refused to come out of hiding.

Mongoose

I went through the reptile house rather quickly, because I am not a big fan of snakes.

Happy Iguanas

Peekaboo Turtle

Some of the last animals we saw were the lions, just as the sun was going down. Mostly nocturnal, they heralded the night with a chorus of roars that would send shivers up your spine if they weren’t contained behind a fence.

Lions