We took a vehicle the scenes tour at the Trevor-Lovejoy Zoo (near Poughkeepsie, NY) today, and we had quite the number of animal encounters!

The big wins were tracking up some rare boops and licks feeding some treats to a few special guests. The red pandas and the black and white tailed lemur were crazy fun. These are pics of Mrs anon feeding them.

The lemur was very cute, but they could be shockingly loud! Besides having special anatomy to deepen their voices, the guide said they will go deeper into the enclosure to tell to get added reverberations. It was a pretty terrifying noise and I have had no clue it came from them.

Quite friendly though. Great climbers, and very cool feet and hands with tiny fingernails and toenails.

The red panda had been on my wishlist for years now. I wanted to give an ear scritch, but I was forbidden. I already push the limits as it is! 😄

This close one was the male and was very polite for Mrs anon. For me, he was a bit pushier, and was grabbing at my hand with that paw and pulling me to give him more snackies.

That paw was much heavier, stronger, and sturdier than I had pictured in my mind! Those claws are solid! Thankfully not sharp, as he was grabbing me good,and the guide said he was breaking his rules, but they felt much harder than dog nails. More like actual bone, like an antler feels.

Both the panda and lemur licked at me trying to get treats, and both were “accidentally” booped in the course of events. Both have great noses, very soft and squishy, and gentle licks. Both A+ scores on boopability and sweetness.

They also have a coati that I recently learned about, so that was cool to see. A lot like a raccoon, but seems to maneuver better and a good bit larger.

Coati Post

They also had a binturong, which is another raccoonish guy. This is some random photo, I couldn’t get a good one of the one on the tour. He’s a very old man and was sleeping in a ball in the corner.

The best thing about binturongs that I can’t say about any other animal: the smell! Very much like buttered popcorn, his whole little building smelled of it. I wouldn’t say exactly like popcorn, more like if it was synthesized popcorn smell like those Jelly Belly popcorn jellybeans. But for an animal smell, it was a really great smell!

Scooter is the river otter. Super sweetheart and she came when the guide called her and she was having the zoomies like crazy. She has a huge aquatic enclosure with a very natural environment, but she loves her black plastic tub the best and she was swimming figure 8s in it, and them flipped the whole thing over with her head and she pounced on her little shed, where I snapped this trouble making look.

She came over and gave my hand some good sniffs, but I was asked not to touch her (bitey) so I deferred. Still a lot of fun to watch.

We had a great time, our guide was great, and they had a lot of neat South American birds and mammals I was mostly unfamiliar with. They also have a lot of wallabies and they breed them as part of an international program for both zoos and release to the wild. Lots of marmosets as well.