Bao Bao, the National Zoo's well-known idiot panda, is currently hiding out in a tree after touching a "hot wire" in her habitat yesterday.

The National Zoo's 7-month-old panda cub, Bao Bao, took her first steps outside into her mother's enclosure Tuesday. The baby panda quickly fell in love with the outdoors, tasting some bamboo and trying to climb a tree.

This strange and savage American winter has produced many oddities, and the appearance of Snowy Owls from the Arctic Circle has been the only delight in a season of ice and gloom. And then a Washington DC bus struck a beloved white owl a block away from the White House Rose Garden.

[Sumatran tiger cub Bandar continued to charm the camera during his public debut at the National Zoo in Washington on Monday. His less-photogenic sister, Sukacita, was also introduced to the public. Photo by Jacquelyn Martin via AP]

The new baby panda at the National Zoo—the alive one, not the one that was born dead—is a girl panda, the zoo announced this morning. And genetic testing reveals that she is the offspring of the National Zoo's own resident male panda, Tian Tian.

The Smithsonian has sent out a press release purporting to update the public on this week's escape of Rusty, a red panda (Ailurus fulgens), from a supposedly secure enclosure at the National Zoo. It is a masterpiece of tautology and obfuscation, designed to conceal the fact that the zookeepers have no idea how an animal with a sub-three-inch brain got away from them.

We are looking for a missing red panda, a male named Rusty. He was last seen at 6 p.m. last night. pic.twitter.com/JHVB79x8XY

Orangutans, they're just like us. No, really. Smithsonian.com's blog Around the Mall has a story today on apes at the museum's National Zoo that have been playing with iPads for recreation, using specially designed apps that allow six orangutans to make music, draw and play games to improve their cognitive skills. I'd note that the apes at the National Zoo are now literally more productive on a day-to-day basis than me, but they probably were even before they got the iPads.

In what will surely be the greatest press release of ths week, the National Zoo offers a catalog of how various animals reacted to yesterday's earthquake. In it, we discover that the range of animal quake reactions is roughly the same as the range of human quake reactions, from startled shrieking to baleful hiding:

[People walk through the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Image via Getty]

The National Zoo in DC has a live video feed of its four new lion cubs, and they're cute. (via)

Washington, D.C.'s Tai Shan and Atlanta's Mei Lan have been recalled to China (Did you know they retain inalienable ownership of all pandas, everywhere, forever?) to participate in their ancestral land's breeding program, and will leave next week.

After leaping over a fence at D.C.'s National Zoo, a small deer evaded capture by two hungry lions, drawing elated cheers and joyous tears from hundreds of onlookers. And then, they read the tale's horrible conclusion in today's Washington Post.