http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/11/15/2009-11-15_the_bronx_zoo_turns_110_here_are_110_things_you_need_to_know_about_this_nyc_favo.html
The Bronx Zoo turns 110: Here are 110 things you need to know about this NYC favorite
JACOB E. OSTERHOUT

A red eyed tree frog that makes it's home in the Bronx. The Bronx Zoo is celebrating its 110th birthday this year.

A red ruffled lemur mesmerizes with giant golden eyes.

A Palawan peacock is one of the zoo's feathered inhabitants.
When the Bronx Zoo first opened its gates to the public in 1899, William McKinley was in the White House, the first city subway line was being dug, and the paperclip had just been patented. So much has changed since, but the Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo remains an integral part of New York City's character.
In honor of the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States turning 110 years old, here's a list of 110 things every New Yorker should know about the Bronx Zoo.
1. The Bronx Zoo opened to visitors on November 8th, 1899.
2. On opening day, the zoo featured 843 animals in 22 exhibits.
3. The zoo borders the south side of theNew York Botanical Garden.
4. Most of the land on which the zoo was built was previously owned by Fordham University.
5. Fordham sold it to the city for only $1,000 with the stipulation that the lands be used for a zoo and garden.
6. More than 236 million guests have visited the zoo since its opening.
7. With 265 acres, the Bronx Zoo is the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States.
8. The zoo employs over 750 full-time staff per year.
9. Theodore Roosevelt and William Hornaday, the Bronx Zoo's first director, helped form the American Bison Society(ABS) at the zoo in 1905.
10. The buildings in Astor Court were designed by the firm of Heins & Lafarge, who also designed the original plans for the cathedral of St. John the Divine inManhattan's Morningside Heights.
11. The African Plains exhibit opened in 1941 and was the first to allow guests to view predator and prey in a naturalistic setting.
12. The zoo is the largest employer of youth in the Bronx.
13. Approximately 2.15 million guests visit the Bronx Zoo each year.
14. The Bronx Zoo is run by the Wildlife Conservation Society, which protects more than 200 million acres of wild land in 65 countries.
15. The WCS supports conservation efforts across the globe and sends its animals around the country to breed.
16. The zoo is home to more than 6,000 animals representing more than 600 species.
17. In 1906, a Congolese pygmy named Ota Benga roamed the zoo's grounds for a time and lived in the monkey cage.
18. Overlooking the Buffalo Range, the Rocking Stone is a rough cube of pinkish granite roughly seven feet high and 30 tons that is balanced perfectly on a granite base and cannot be moved.
19. In 1999, the Congo Gorilla Forest opens as the first exhibit that directly links a zoo-based experience with WCS field conservation projects.
20. Tiger Mountain opened in 2003, allowing guests to view animal enrichment activities that help keep the animals stimulated and engaged by presenting them with choices in their environment.
21. The "Madagascar!" exhibit opened in 2008 and houses dozens of species from the African island country.
22. The Bronx Zoo was initially named the New York Zoological Park.
23. The original design called for the zoo's buildings to center around the circular sea lion pool.
24. The "World of Birds" and "World of Reptiles" exhibits maintain their original taxonomical arrangement.
25. The zoo has been designated a New York City landmark.
26. In 2006, the zoo installed state-of-the-art, eco-friendly public bathrooms to reduce water usage and recover waste for use as fertilize.
27. An abandoned snow leopard named Leo arrived at the zoo from Pakistan in 2006.
28. Since 1903, the Bronx Zoo has had 90 snow leopard babies at the Bronx Zoo.
29. Zoo guests are permitted to bring their own food and eat at the picnic areas located throughout the park.
30. On Saturdays and Sundays throughout the Holiday season, the zoo offers Clydesdale carriage rides for $5.
31. The Clydesdale horses are named Ranger, Jesse, and Monty.
32. All three Clydesdale horses were born in Shafer, Minnesota.
33. Watch white-throated bee-eaters hunt live cricket at the "Daily Bee Eater Buffet," every day at 2:45 pm.
34. Sculptor A.P. Proctor carved out the animal frieze at the Elephant House.
35. The WCS first veterinary department was established at the Bronx Zoo in 1901.
36. The "Madagascar!" exhibit used to be the Lion House.
37. Many of the zoo's original lions, pumas and snow leopards arrived in 1910.
38. In 1916, zoo visitors could ride a boat down the Bronx River.
39. In 2009, zoo visitors can stroll down the Mitsubishi Riverwalk for the same view.
40. The zoo received its first duck-billed platypus from Australia in 1922.
41. Helen Keller spent her 42nd birthday with her nieces at the Bronx Zoo in 1922.
42. The "Himalayan Highlands" exhibit is home to red pandas, which are nocturnal and can sleep up to 15 hours a day.
43. Around Halloween, the Bronx Zoo lets the snow leopards play with hollowed out pumpkins.
44. The Bronx Zoo houses a pair of king vultures named Dolly and Patsy.
45. In the "Madagascar!" exhibit, the zoo houses 100,000 hissing cockroaches, which can grow to two inches long.
46. The "World of Reptiles" exhibit houses Surinam horned frogs, which gets its nickname "Pacman frog" from its oversized mouth.
47. Every Wednesday, admission is a pay-what-you-wish donation. Suggested donation is $15 for adults; $13 for seniors (65 ); $11 for children (3-12). Additional fees may be required for various exhibits, attractions and rides.
48. The best way to get to the Bronx Zoo from Manhattan is the BxM11 express bus runs along Madison Avenue between 26th and 99th Streets, then travels directly to the zoo's Bronx River entrance.
49. The zoo is open year round except for the following holidays: Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, and Martin Luther King Day.
50. The 16-year-old saw-whet owl named Arnica came to the zoo after colliding with a car in Buffalo.
51. Temujin the gyrfalcon, the largest falcon at the Bronx Zoo, is able to survive at temperatures of 70 degrees below zero.
52. Barf the turkey vulture received its name because regurgitation is the animal's main defense mechanism.
53. Coyote, the zoo's 24-year-old Harris hawk, once flew for the Buffalo Philharmonic and performs best in front of a crowd.
54. In October 2005, the zoo's Sumatran Rhinoceros, Rupunzel, died.
55. Vinu, the zoo's 38-year-old male Indian rhino, recently impregnated an 18-year-old female rhino at the Cincinnati Zoo by artificial insemination.
56. In the 1960s, the zoo opened "The World of Darkness" exhibit, the world's first major exhibit of nocturnal animals. Because of budget cuts, the exhibit closed in 2009.
57. The elephants at the Bronx Zoo - Maxine, Patty and Happy – are all in their mid-thirties and won't be replaced when they die.
58. Maxine, Patty and Happy are named after the Andrews Sisters.
59. The zoo opened a new exhibit in June featuring two aardvarks from Tanzania.
60. All male giraffes born at the zoo are named for James Walter Carter, a benefactor who underwrote the giraffe building and died in 1981.
61. Female giraffes are named for Mr. Carter's wife, Margaret, who died in 1984.
62. Born February 17th, 2008, Margaret Abigail is the zoo's newest addition to its giraffe herd. Upon birth the baby giraffe weighed between 100 and 150 pounds and measured about five-and-a-half to six feet tall.
63. The Bronx Zoo has bred more snow leopards in captivity than any other zoo in the world.
64. The zoo's latest edition to its bird collection is a loggerhead shrike, better known as the "butcher bird" for impaling its captives on thorns and barbed wire before eating them.
65. The Asian one-horned rhinoceros Krishnan weighed 150 lbs. when he was born at the zoo on October 6th, 2008. He is expected to grow to 4,600 pounds.
66. Moxie the lion was born on November 6th, 2008, to her mom Sukari and her dad M'wasi.
67. "Lion Island," which opened in 1940, was the first exhibit in the groundbreaking African Plains habitat that allowed animals to wander without a cage.
68. "Tiger Mountain" cost $8.5 million to build and provides the Siberian tigers with heated rocks and cooled water.
69. New York City's most famous gorilla, Patty Cake, first came to the Bronx Zoo when her mother accidentally broke her arm.
70. With some 490,000 riders annually, the 30-year-old Skyfari, a two-mile long span of cable cars that passed over the Butterfly Garden and African Plains exhibit, was the zoo's third most popular attraction before it was shut down earlier this year for financial reasons.
71. The zoo's two most popular attractions are the Congo Gorilla exhibit and the monorail ride.
72. In 1916, the Bronx Zoo built the first fully equipped animal-hospital at a zoo in the world.
73. The Wildlife Health Center at the Bronx Zoo serves more than 15,000 animals from the four WCS zoos in New York.
74. Congo Gorilla Forest is the largest replica of an African rain forest on the planet.
75. The Congo Gorilla Forest exhibit has two troops of gorillas, totaling 19, each with its own male silverback leader.
76. Since Congo Gorilla Forest's opening in 1999, 14 gorillas, 23 red river hogs, 11 Wolf's guenons and four okapis have been born in the exhibit.
77. Seven million people have visited the Congo Gorilla Forest and donated $10.6 million in donations that have helped to create 18 national parks in Africa.
78. Wednesday the porcupine starred in a Youtube video decrying Bronx Zoo budget cuts and 83,000 New Yorkers sent letters to Albany in protest. The state cuts were later rescinded.
79. Fubo, one of two silverback gorillas at the Bronx Zoo, underwent a brain scan in March after suffering from a seizure. Doctors discovered a lesion on the left temporal lobe of his brain.
80. There are 1,043 reptiles and amphibians at the Bronx Zoo from 132 species.
81. When the Astor Court sea lion pool was reopened after renovation in 2007, Mayor Bloomberg threw out the first fish.
82. In 1951, a 14-year-old gorilla named Makoko drowned in a moat at the zoo, despite the valiant efforts of a bird keeper, who dove into the water to rescue the great ape.
83. In 2003, workers at the Bronx zoo reported that the cheetahs were most attracted to the scent of Calvin Klein Obsession for Men.
84. The sea lion pool holds up to 200,000 gallons of water and can accommodate 10 sea lions.
85. In 2004, a man stripped off his clothes and jumped into the caiman tank in the World of Darkness section. He was pulled out by police and zookeepers before he got hurt.
86. In 1914, a poem mysteriously appeared on the wall of the elephant house. No one ever claimed to have authored the verses and rumor has it that Gunda the elephant penned it himself.
87. There are five waterfalls in the "JungleWorld" exhibit and a bubbling stream that circulates 2,000 gallons of water a minute.
88. "JungleWorld" was the first large-scale exhibit in the world to incorporate multiple species into a single, shared environment.
89. A proboscis monkey knocked herself out when she tried to jump from a real rock onto a painted rock in the "JungleWorld" exhibit.
90. In 1996, the Bronx Zoo opened the a 170-foot-long caterpillar-shaped tent in the Butterfly Exhibit that would allow visitors to "interact" with the butterflies.
91. The zoo only officially received the name "Bronx Zoo" in 2004.
92. Over half of the species originally exhibited in the "Butterfly Zone" were from the metropolitan region.
93. Bird keepers at the zoo use a 24-inch-long sleeve that culminates in a sock puppet head to feed flamingo chicks that arrive too late in the hatching season.
94. Rainey Memorial Gate, located at the Fordham Road entrance, features 22 full-sized sculpted animals.
95. In 1902, a seven-month-old Mexican panther gnawed his way out of his cage and escaped from the Bronx Zoo.
96. Jocko, a 20-pound monkey, attacked head keeper James Riley in 1908 while he was cleaning the monkey's cage. Riley was so badly injured that he had to be taken to the hospital-- he nearly lost his right thumb.
97. In 2001, 32-year-old Peter Vitique of the Bronx scaled a 20-foot wall, dropped into the gorilla exhibit and stripped down to his red boxer shorts. He later told the police he wanted to be "one with the gorillas."
98. The bird kitchen at the Bronx Zoo makes 20 basic diets for the 200 species of birds at the zoo.
99. There is a beehive on the kitchen's roof for the bee eating birds.
100. A baby gaur was born to a dairy cow in 1981 as part of an experiment to increase the survival of endangered species.
101. The Bronx Zoo once ran the Wildlife Survival Center on St. Catherine's Island off the coast of Georgia before it was shut down in 2005.
102. Samantha, formerly the largest captive snake in the world at 26 feet in length, died at the Bronx Zoo on Nov. 21, 2002.
103. White-naped cranes are born in pairs, and because the first chick to hatch occasionally kills the younger sibling, Bronx Zoo keepers rear the second chick, feeding it with long forceps and taking it on walks.
104. In 1915, all the keepers of the reptile house were convinced that it was haunted by an unknown ghost.
105. After World War I, the Bronx Zoo helped replenish animal populations in Europe and Africa.
106. Five lemur babies have been born in the "Madagascar!" exhibit in the last year.
107. The renovated Lion House received a LEED Gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.
108. Four Chinese alligators that were raised at the Bronx Zoo were returned to Chongming Island at the mouth of the Yangtze River and have become the first captive-born generation to successfully breed in the wild.
109. Jose the beaver is the first wild beaver to return to the New York City in at least 200 years. He lives on the banks of the Bronx River at the Bronx Zoo.
110. Chris Rock often takes his children to the Bronx Zoo.