Although the Zoo is closed to guests, the animals are still celebrating the holidays. Today (Dec. 21, 2020), wildlife care specialists created holiday wreaths and gave them to Akobi and Mabel, pygmy hippos at the San Diego Zoo.

New information about thick-billed parrots, gathered using state-of-the-art technology, is likely to identify important steps to conserving this endangered species. In September, a team of biologists—including members from Organización Vida Silvestre A.C. (OVIS) in Mexico, the Arizona Fish and Game Department, World Parrot Trust and San Diego Zoo Global—worked together to place small transmitters on thick-billed parrots in Chihuahua, Mexico.

In a study that has unprecedented implications to advance both medicine and biodiversity conservation, researchers have sequenced 131 new placental mammal genomes, bringing the worldwide total to more than 250.