Smithsonian's National Zoo Launches New App for Smartphones

Features Include Live Animal Cams, Self-Guided Tours and GPS Mapping

The National Zoo invites visitors to customize their Zoo experience with its first mobile app for iOS devices, now available from the App Store for $1.99. An app for Android platforms will be available in the next few weeks. With the swipe of a fingertip, smartphone users can access helpful tips for navigating the 163-acre park for an on-site or virtual tour. Features include:

  • Animal Facts: More than 300 descriptions of the Zoo's animals, including images.
  • Interactive GPS-Enabled Map of the Zoo: Users can locate animal exhibits, trails, restrooms, food amenities and gift shops.
  • Live Animal Cams: Six of the Zoo's most popular webcams will live stream directly to a smartphone, including giant pandas, gorillas, tigers, flamingos, lions and golden lion tamarins. Watch the animals interact with their exhibit mates, play with enrichment items, forage for food and other activities.
  • Zooify Yourself: Users can create a customized portrait by transforming themselves into an animal, for example, with red panda ears or oryx horns, and then email the photo to friends and family.
  • Animal Demonstrations Schedule: More than 30 animal demonstrations take place at the National Zoo every day. Users can see an octopus feeding, meet a prehensile-tailed porcupine or watch a training demonstration. Those activities and many more are available in this feature.
  • Self-Guided Tours: Tours can be chosen or customized.
  • Tips for Visiting: With this feature, users can plan a visit to the Zoo.
  • Live Public Transportation Feed: Up-to-the-minute information is available for taking public transportation to and from the Zoo, including the Metro subway and NextBus feeds.
  • Just for Kids: Kids can take a child-friendly tour, listen to the many noises Zoo animals make and add animal features to photos of friends and family.

The Smithsonian's National Zoo' app was designed and developed in partnership with Cortina Productions and XCO Software and made possible by Friends of the National Zoo. Proceeds from the app benefit conservation, research and education programs at the National Zoo.

For screen shots of the National Zoo App, contact Sarah Emerson at emersons@si.edu.