P52 Photo Challenge - True Love (at the Zoo) - Week 7

A trip to the zoo on Valentine's Day ended up being a wonderful place to capture true love, friendship, and companionship in photographs.

Some of the highlights were the Japanese macaques or snow monkeys. (The snow monkeys are found only in Japan, and are considered a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.)

There were three babies/young monkeys at the Minnesota Zoo. Two of the babies were still with their mothers who were quite protective of them. 

The brown (a.k.a. grizzly) bears in the Russia's Grizzly Coast exhibit were having fun rough-housing. Reminded me of Montague and Gretel (the dogs) who like to play rough at times. The bears even stood up at one point giving a rather dramatic show of who was the most powerful of the two.

The rhinoceros hornbills were jumping from branch to branch. At one point, one of the birds broke off a branch and handed it gently from its beak to the other bird's beak.

The family of Asian small-clawed otters were sleeping soundly. This was a rare moment of quiet. Normally, when we have visited them, they are active - running around, playing in the water, and stealing bits of hay from one another. Not today...they rested peacefully together with their heads resting on one another.

And...because I couldn't get enough of the snow monkeys...one more picture. This is the way the babies were carried. They would hop onto the mother's back and she would walk and run around with them holding onto her fur.