Creatures big and small have been examined at London Zoo as part of its famous annual weigh-in.
From ferocious lions to tiny meerkats, all zoo residents are subject to annual check-ups.
Carrying out weight checks and measurements not only helps staff monitor the well-being of animals, but also allows them to identify pregnancies.
Not only that, but it provides important information for their care, as well as for their species, since many are threatened in the wild and are part of conservation breeding programs.
Animal weights and measurements are uploaded into a shared database called the Zoological Information Management System.
This helps conservationists around the world compare important information on thousands of threatened species.
The zoo’s famous penguins seem to be very excited to be weighed and measured by the staff.
Bhanu, an Asiatic lion, reacts in his enclosure during the annual weigh-in at London Zoo
A Bactrian camel also takes part in the weighing, looking at its keeper’s clipboard.
Penguin keeper Jess Ray weighs Humboldt penguins, but one cheekily climbs onto her leg
Camel keeper Mick Tiley pays close attention to camel Neomie
A hairy Mangalitsa pig demands snacks before letting herself be weighed by staff
The zoo’s lion cubs frolic around the unfamiliar board that shows visitors their weights.
The puppies almost seem to be studying the weigh-in results themselves.
In what has been a busy few days for the zoo, the annual event came just hours after a Banksy artwork painted there had to be removed for safekeeping.
The piece, which depicts a gorilla lifting a blind and allowing several birds and a seal to escape, has been replaced by a replica.
A nearby sign reads “Banksy woz ere” and offers apologies to disappointed fans of the street artist.
The painting at the entrance to the zoo was the ninth and final work in a series of animal images created throughout the capital.
Banksy’s latest work shows a gorilla letting other animals escape from the zoo
When the work was first unveiled, zoo officials used a Perspex cover to “protect it from the glare of the sun.”
London Zoo responded to the comments in a social media post announcing the removal: “We are still working on exactly what we are going to do with the artwork, but we are keen to properly preserve this moment in our history.”
Two other pieces in the series, including the elephant silhouettes in Chelsea’s Edith Grove, were defaced and another was stolen just hours after it was installed.
Banksy’s works across London since August 5 include a rhino riding a silver Nissan Micra car with a traffic cone on the bonnet on Westmoor Street in Charlton, a police box on Ludgate Hill transformed into a giant piranha tank and a pelican crouching to catch a fish on the sign for Bonner’s Fish Bar in Walthamstow.
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