Meet Red Panda Mei Mei

What’s black and white and red all over? Mei Mei the red panda! The fluffy 3-year-old arrived at the Oregon Zoo earlier this month, and is already making herself right at home in her new habitat. “We’re so excited to have Mei Mei here,” said keeper Sara Morgan. “She’s very outgoing and curious — she poked her nose out and started exploring right away.” Mei Mei’s new home is in the zoo’s former Amur leopard habitat. To prepare for her arrival, her care team remodeled the space to accommodate a tree-dwelling, bamboo-eating red panda by adding many branches and leafy plants, along with a bubbling pond and lots of room to climb. To keep her cool in hot weather, they added some refreshing misters and an air-conditioned den box. Though they share part of their name with giant pandas, red pandas are in a class all by themselves: The sharp-toothed, ring-tailed omnivores are the only members of the Ailuridae family. Found in the montane forests of the Himalayas and major mountain ranges of sou