"I've known a few rhinos in my day," Jason Watters, Vice President of Wellness and Animal Behavior at the SF Zoo, tells SFist. "They all have a different personalities. Our youngster, Boone, a black rhino for whom we've developed a Twitter persona, @boonetherhino, is just six. You might call him a tween, and he's still getting things figured out, understanding his situation."

For Boone and his fellow rhino, a horned one named Gauhati whom Watters describes as "very playful and confident," captivity isn't always exciting. Fortunately, there are ways that the pair can better engage with their surroundings. "What we want to do is be able to turn the animal's environment on, have it say hey, investigate me a little bit more."

To do that, SF Zoo is in the midst of crowdfunding $15,000 (of which $4,000 has been raised so far) in the next twenty or so days for a first-of-it's-kind rhino toy slash feeder. Basically, the thing would be a giant bluetooth food dispensing soccer ball, a magnified version of aFoobler, which is a Kickstarter-backed "smart puzzle feeder for your dog."

"Animals need to engage with the environment to maximize their psychological well-being," write Watters and the rest of the team. "One of the easiest ways to accomplish this in zoos is to make animals 'work' for their food. We want to build a novel feeding system to engage our rhinos in more active foraging, and assess their behavioral responses."

Using high-tech toys to improve foraging in captive rhinos from Experiment on Vimeo.

Currently, says Watters, "We're sort of inching our way there with [the rhinos], preparing the guys for their new ball. Obviously when we develop it there will be food inside of it and these guys have super powerful noses so they'll smell it. But for now we want the animals to put it together that a cue — perhaps a bell or a buzzer — indicates that now is a time that they can get food out of the ball."

"So far we've taken a 55 gallon barrel, put some holes in it, and put some of the food in there. But the holes aren't big enough for the food to get out, just the smell. That gets us away from the possible situation where the rhinos get frustrated."

Yes, frustrated rhinos are definitely a concern. But hey, these guys look like they're just playing.

Related: Robin Williams' Pet Parrot Lives At SF Zoo

Yesterday we met the San Francisco Zoo's unnamed Red Panda. We learn today that Mr. Red Panda (as we will call him until he gets an official name) has an adorably vicious thirst for plush toys and bamboo. Although our new ginger friend appears to be giving that toy fox a brutal mauling, we would still gladly take this little guy out for Thai food, because he would pick out all the bamboo shoots from the pad thai, obviously.

Mr. Red Panda won't be on public display until Saturday, May 10, but the folks from Animal Planet are currently hard at work on his fancy new treehouse, which comes complete with a covered, wraparound deck and lengthy, reclaimed wood promenade leading to a second sun deck. This is one red panda who can totally get behind a little temporary human encroachment — even in the Outer Sunset, those sort of amenities are expensive.

Also included here: an adorably arboreal koala bear who got some face time with Animal Planet this week. Koala, you can definitely come along for Thai food too!

Previously: Meet The SF Zoo's New Red Panda
We Will Not Apologize For More Photos Of The S.F. Zoo's Tiger Cub

UPDATE: More red panda pics!

On Saturday, May 10th the San Francisco Zoo will welcome the newest addition to its incredibly adorable family: a 10-month-old male red panda.

Naming rights will go to the Zoo's emeritus board member Barry Lipman and his wife, Marie, who donated a cool $31,000 for the honor. (So, expect him to be named "Barry," maybe?)

Red Pandas, in case you're not up to date on your taxonomy, are not that closely related the black and white Giant Pandas. They're actually part of the superfamily Musteloidea and are more similar to mustelids like weasels and otters. Red Pandas have a charming waddling gait and generally enjoy a solitary life of daytime naps and nighttime meals of bamboo, birds, eggs and other lesser mammals.

In addition to being one of the cutest things we've seen at the zoo at least since Jillian was born, the arboreal mammal will be getting his own custom-built enclosure made by the people from Animal Planet's Treehouse Masters. In the wild, red pandas without luxury treehouses are considered threatened and their habitat has been damaged by human encroachment.

Mr. Red Panda will make his public debut at the zoo on May 10th at 10 a.m., with his TV appearance to follow sometime in June.

Update, Friday May 2nd: There are even more photos right this way.

Previously: All SF Zoo coverage on SFist
[SFZoo]
[SFEx]

On Monday, Jillian the San Francisco Zoo's lovable tiger cub turned one whole year old. To celebrate she got a "Happy Birthday!" gift bag, some plastic toys she didn't seem to care for, and a bubble bath. Of course she got a bubble bath.

Awww, it seems like only yesterday we were watching her devour her first hamburger.

This morning at the San Francisco Zoo, Kabibe the baby gorilla made her public debut. As someone who has no regard for material possessions and the politics of normal humans, she is (for the moment at least) the princess of San Francisco.

Her name, by the way, means "Little Lady" in Swahili.

Previously: All adorable things coverage on SFist.

Look at these tiny animals. "What is a Peccary?" You're probably wondering to yourself, "like some kind of pig thing?" Well, you'd be close, but Chacoan Peccaries are actually much more special than your average hog. Originally believed to be extinct, there are only 3,000 of them in existence. Two weeks ago, the San Francisco Zoo raised that tally to 3,006.

Two of the pups were born on October 27th and four more were born on October 29th. Not bad for a species that hadn't been discovered until the early 1970s. Chacoan Peccaries hail from the Gran Chaco lowland region that stretches from Paraguay into Bolivia and Argentina. In South America, their native habitat is threatened by ranches, oil exploration, road construction, and uncontrolled hunting. At the San Francisco Zoo, however, you can find them across from Eagle Island, next to the Terrace Cafe.

The peccaries like to eat salt licks around mounds made by leaf-cutter ants and they've gotten pretty good at eating cacti by rolling them around and knocking all the spines off.

This weekend, there will be a special Peccary Party where you can come and welcome them to San Francisco in person. In the meantime, here they are skittering around all cute on YouTube:

[SFZoo]

When it comes to Zoo life in San Francisco we here at SFist admittedly have an adorable bias. So, in the interest of fairness to non-mammal, non-bird animals (sorry invertebrates; you're still gross) we present to you: Big Daddy Bahasa, a 2-year-old Komodo dragon who just arrived at the San Francisco Zoo.

Bahasa hails from Knoxville, Tennessee where he broke free from his shell into a life of captivity. Now that the young dragon has arrived in San Francisco, he'll be moving into a new all-Komodo place out by Ocean Beach, where the recently renovated digs will be climate controlled to an agreeable 85 degrees, unlike the rest of the neighborhood. At the moment, Bahasa is only about 47 inches long and weighs five pounds, but he's expected to grow up to nine feet long by the time he's all grown up in a few years.

Now watch as he gives you a mean, prehistoric side-eye:

On Saturday, the San Francisco Zoo's new waddle of penguin chicks had a graduation of sorts. After several weeks worth of intense eating, squawking and napping at Fish School, the four girls and one boy of the Class of 2013 were loosed upon the world, driven by a natural instinct (and some helpful zookeepers) to join their fellow Spheniscidae on the Zoo's penguin island.

As is tradition at the Zoo, the young Magellanic penguin chicks flopped and flapped down a lane of eager onlookers and Zoo members before plopping themselves into the pond. They were mostly excited about joining their new home, but one little one at the back seemed a little hesitant. We feel ya, buddy.

The single male chick this season was named completely at random from a pool of names drawn from a hat. Appropriately enough, he will be taking on the same name as England's royal baby: George Alexander Louis.

Also, because it's way too adorable to leave out, the breakout hit short film from 2010: "Penguin Knocks Over Camera"

Previously: S.F. Zoo's Penguin Chicks Attend Fish School, Graduate With Honors In Cuteness
Seven Very Short Films Starring Baby Penguins
Welcome To The World, Tiny Magellanic Penguin!
All adorable things coverage on SFist

Not even two days old and San Francisco's own western lowland gorilla princess is already learning how to deal with life as one of the offspring of an incredibly important bloodline (endangered gorillas, that is).

OJ and Nneka's daughter was born around 2 p.m. on Wednesday, weighing 5 pounds and 1 ounce. (Your associate editor, by comparison, weighed a hefty 9 pounds and 4 ounces at birth, according to a text message conversation with his mother.)

Friday morning, Zookeepers snapped this photo of the new baby girl sticking her nose right in the camera and briefly stealing the spotlight from other notable zoo babies like these penguins, this giraffe calf and (of course) Jillian the tiger cub. We guess she takes after her father that way. Gorillas, they're just like us!

Previously: Welcome To The World, San Francisco Zoo's Baby Gorilla!

The San Francisco Zoo's colony of Magellanic Penguins welcomed five new chicks back in May. Later this month, the young ones will make their first public appearance when they waddle their way around penguin island for March of the Penguins. To get ready for their big debut, the chicks are currently separated from the colony attending "Fish School" — a kind of charm school for young aquatic birds. Yesterday afternoon, SFist dropped in to Fish School because we're suckers for tiny animals.

As chief penguin keeper Anthony Brown explained to us, Fish School is where these adolescent penguins go to learn that there are ways to eat that don't involve having someone barf on your face. In other words: they get to hang out with other penguins their age during that awkward period when their newborn downy fluff starts falling off, their adult feathers start growing in and their parents start letting them go to the mall by themselves. The penguins we met were between five and seven weeks old and already about the size of a small duck.

Brown, who is lovingly referred to as a "penguin whisperer" around the Zoo, is a fantastic source of information about all things penguin-related. But the best thing we learned yesterday was that if you scratch a penguin behind their ear, they will lovingly try to scratch you right back.

March of the Penguins happens on July 27th this year. That's when these little guys will go join Chuck Norris, Captain EO, Frankie and Vito (all real names of penguins) in their permanent homes on penguin island.

Previously: Welcome To The World, Tiny Magellanic Penguin!

After a couple months of simply calling our favorite creature on the planet "the cub," San Francisco Zoo's furry little bundle of joy finally got a proper name. Behold: Jillian the three-month-old Sumatran tiger cub.

Local big cat lovers will remember the cub's naming rights were up for sale to the highest bidder at the ZooFest Hard Hat & Tails charity event, which happened last week. "You've got to pay to name the puss," Robin Williams reportedly said, acting as auctioneer for the cub, who was presumably not consulted on the whole thing.

The winning bidder was none other than literary agent Jillian Manus, who shelled out $47,000 in tax-deductible dollars to become the city's most recognizable cat lady.

In related news, the S.F. Zoo also picked up a new Komodo dragon who will be making his first public appearance in July. Former zoo trustee Barry Lipman dropped $25,000 for the naming rights to that prehistoric creature, and now we're all hoping he names it after San Francisco's most famous Komodo dragon bite victim.

Finally, because all we really care about is the tiger cub, here's Jill (as we will now be calling her, because we're friends and we're close like that) romping around her playpen earlier this week:

If people photos are more your thing, Drew Altizer has photos of the charity event.

[Chron]
[SFAppeal]

It's been a moment since we last checked in with our favorite animal on the planet, but we are happy to report that about a week or so ago, the San Francisco Zoo's two-month-old bundle of joy started chowing down on solid food, which appears to be a large (raw) hamburger. Hey, we like hamburgers too! Tiger Cubs: they're just like us.

Who knew raw meat could be so adorable?

Previously: All Tiger Cub coverage on SFist.