New York City Zoos

Your experience of NYC summer wildlife needn't be limited to the squirrels and birds roaming in the Central Park—it's a wonderful time to visit zoos in all five boroughs. This spring, the Staten Island Zoo welcomed a baby tamandua (or anteater) to its collection, making it home to what's believed to be the first anteater birth in NYC. The zoo also houses an extensive variety of reptiles as well as baby foxes and a brotherly pair of rare Amur leopards. Cross the bridge into Brooklyn to see kangaroos and sea lions (along with brand-new baby Geoffroy's marmosets) at the Prospect Park Zoo, or head to the Central Park Zoo, home to a number of natural habitats—including Arctic and rain-forest environments—and a white-naped crane chick.

At the Queens Zoo, visitors can greet animals such as alligators, bald eagles and the world's smallest deer. The Bronx Zoo is not only the premier zoo in the city but also the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States—spanning 265 acres. Some of the zoo's most famous residents—it holds more than 6,000 animals all told—include lemurs, a 13-foot-long crocodile and two baby western lowland gorillas.