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Near the entrance to the zoo there are a number of plants with beautiful blossoms, most of which I can't name.  This tree flower was the first and it simply , although quietly, commanded a photo of itself.

Bouganvilla seems to grow wild all over south Texas and the zoo is no exception.  The petals, regardless of hue, demand to be noticed.  In addition to the violet color displayed here, there are red varities, pink and orange that I've seen.

More purple blossoms, although I don't know what this one is, but it made a nice photo.

The Gladys Porter Zoo is one of the nicer zoos I've visited.  The animals all look healthy and the exhibit areas provide lots of room for them.

This is an Arabian Oryx.  It's the smallest member of the Oryx genus.  An endangered species, the Arabian Oryx was largely extinct in the wild by the early 1970's.  Other than humans, wolves are the their only predator.  In captivity and good conditions in the wild, Oryx have a life span of up to twenty years. In periods of drought, however, the animal's life expectancy may be significantly reduced by malnutrition and dehydration.

Their diet consists mainly of grass, but they will eat a large variety of vegetation, including trees, buds, herbs, fruit, tubers and roots.  Herds of Arabian Oryx follow infrequent rains to eat the new plants that grow afterward.  They can go several weeks without water.

A Malayan Sun Bear.  The Sun Bear is the smallest of the bear family.  It has poor eyesight, but a very keen sense of smell.  It is a nocturnal animal and feeds primarily at night. It's diet consists of small animals, birds, eggs, fruits, termites and other insects. It  doesn't hibernate and reproduces year round. 

The Cape Barren Goose or Coreopsis Goose is most easily recognised by its ashey grey plumage and the green, waxy covering (the cere) on its beak.  It is indigenous to southern Australia where it is is a "land lubber". It rarely swims and prefers to graze in grassy meadows rather than feeding from the bottom of shallow ponds.

The East African Crowned Crane.  These birds prefer open marshy country.  They are often seen in flocks of hundreds.  They feed on plants, worms, insects, lizards and small mammals.

Crowned Cranes are the only cranes that roost in trees and they are usually seen in pairs.  After their eggs hatch, they maintain the family structure for 9 - 10 months, after which the young birds form their own flocks.

There are five diffrent kinds of Flamingos:  the Caribbean (American) Flamingo, European Flamingo, Chilean Flamingo, Lesser Flamingo, Andean Flamingo and the James Flamingo.  The Lesser and European  Flamingos are "Old World" species.

The habitat of these Caribbean Flamingos tends to be shallow, brakish, coastal or inland lakes.  The American Flamingo breeds in the Galapagos Islands, northern Caribbean Islands, coastal Columbia, Venezuela, the Bahamas, Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. They lay a single, chalky white egg on a mud round.  Hatching takes from 28 - 32 days, after which, both parents take care of the young for up to six years when they reach sexual maturity.  Flamingos have a life expectancy up to 40 years; among the longest of birds.

The Gaur is the largest species of cattle; bigger than the cape bullalo, water buffalo and bison.  In the wild, Gaurs live in herds of up to 40 individuals and graze on grasses, shoots and fruit

Gaur herds are led by an old, adult female (matriarch).    A family group consists of small mixed herds of 2 - 40 individuals, although adult males may wander alone.

Due to their formidable size and power, Gaurs have few natural enemies.  Crocodiles or Leopards occasionally attack calves or unhealthy animals, but only the tiger has been known to kill a full-grown adult.

The Giraffe is the tallest of all living animal species.  The Giraffe is related to cattle, but placed in its own separate family.  Its range extends from Chad to South Africa.

Female giraffes associate in groups of a dozen or so members, occasionally including a few younger males. Younger males tend to live in "bachelor" herds, with older males often leading solitary lives. Reproduction is polygamous, with a few older males impregnating all the fertile females in a herd. 

Giraffes will mingle with the other herbivores in the African bush. Their company is beneficial, since they are tall enough to have a much wider scope of an area and will watch for predators.  The Giraffe has one of the shortest sleep requirements for any mammal, which is ten minutes to two hours in a 24 hour period.

Jim gets a kiss from a  baby Dromedary.

In the 1800's  Dromedaries were used by the U.S. Army in Texas.  In May, 1856 Major H.C. Wayne off loaded 32 Dromedaries at Indianola, TX.  The Army was conducting tests of the camel's potential for pursuing hostile Native Americans and as a beast of burden.  In every case the camels proved more fit than horses or mules.

However, their use met great resistance from the handlers who complained bitterly that they smelled badly, spat on them and  frightened the horses.

At the end of the Civil War the Army abandoned the use of camels and sold them at public auction.

The Bontebok is an antelope found in South Africa and Lesotho.

The endangered Bontebok were once hunted as pests and reduced to a wild population of just seventeen animals.  While the species is nearly extinct in its natural habitat, they are avidly farmed because they are a popular quarry for hunters and they are easily sustained.

There are about 200 animals surviving in the Bontebok National Park in South Africa.  The Park was established in 1961 specifically for the survival of the Bontebok and is the smallest of Africa's National Parks.

Chimpanzee is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan.  They are memers of the Hominidae family, along with gorillas, orangutans and humans.  The two chimp species are the closest living relatives to humans.

A fully grown adult male can weigh from 75 - 155 pounds and stand 3 -4 feet tall, while females usually weigh 57 - 110 pounds and stand 2 - 3 1/2 feet tall.  They rarely live past the age of 40 in the wild, but have been known to reach the age of more than 60 in captivity.

Chimps make tools and use them to acquire food and for social displays; they have sophisticated hunting strategies requiring cooperation, influence and rank.  They are status conscious, manipulative and capable of deception.  They can learn to understand human language and use symbols, includiing sign language.

The natural habitat of common chimpanzees is the tropical forests and wet savannas of western and central Africa.  They once inhabited most of this region, but their habitat has been dramatically reduced in recent years.

Although omnivorous, their diet is mainly vegetarian, consisting of fruit, leaves, nuts, seeds, tubers and other vegetation supplemented by insects and occasionally small prey.

Orangutans live in trees and they are the largest living arboreal animal.  They have longer arms than other great apes, and their hair is reddish brown rather than brown or black typical of other great apes.

Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, they are currently found only in rain forests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra.

Orangutans are highly opportunistic foragers; the composition of their diet varies markedly from month to month.  Fruit makes up 65% of the animal's diet.  The fruit of fig trees is commonly eaten since it is easy to harvest and digest.  Bornean orangutans are recorded to consume more than 300 different food items and include: young leaves, shoots, seeds and bark.  Insects, honey and bird eggs are also included.  Bark is the last resort in times of food scarcity, fruits always being the preferred choice.

Gorillas are the largest of the living primates. They are ground-dwelling herbivores that inhabit the forests of Africa.  The DNA of gorillas is 98% - 99% identical to that of humans, and they are the next closest living relatives to humans after the two chimpanzee species.

They live in tropical or subtropical forests.  Although their range covers a small percentage of Africa, gorillas cover a wide range of elevations from mountains of the Albertine Rift to dense forests and lowland swamps and marshes.

Gorillas move around by knuckle-walking.  Adult males range in height from 5 1/2 feet to almost 6 feet tall and wieigh from 300 - 450 pounds.  Adult females most often weigh about half that of the males.

Gorillas are herbivores, eating fruits, leaves and shoots.  Much like other animals that feed on plants and shoots, they sometimes ingest small insects also.  They spend most of the day eating.  Lowland gorillas feed mainly on fruit while Mountain gorillas feed mostly on herbs, stems and roots.

Infants stay with their mothers for 3 - 4 years.  Their lifespan is between 30 -50 years, although there have been exceptions.

Gorillas are endangered, and have been subject to intense poaching for a long time.  Threats include habitat destruction and the bushmeat trade.  In 2004 a population of several hundred groillas in the Odzala National Park, Republic of Congo was essentially wiped out by the Ebola virus.

The Lar Gibbon, also known as the White-handed Gibbon, is one of the more well-known gibbons and is often seen in zoos.

The historical range of the Lar Gibbon extends from southwest China and eastern Myanmar to Thailand and Burma down the Malay Peninsula.  It is also present in the northwest portion of the island of Sumatra.  In recent decades its range has been reduced and fragmented, and they are now extinct in China.

Their diet is mainly fruits and leaves, but they will also eat buds, flowers, birds and insects.

They are diurnal and arboreal, inhabiting rain forests.  They rarely come down to the ground, but they use their long arms to brachiate through the trees.  With their hooked hands they can move swiftly, swinging from the branches.

The life expentancy of Lar gibbons is about 25 years, but they are threatened in various ways: they are sometimes hunted for their meat, and sometimes a parent is killed in order to capture young animals for pets.  The largest danger, however, is the loss of habitat.  With breath taking speed the forests of Southeast Asia are cut down in order to establish plantations, fields and settlements.

The Mexican Spider Monkey is now found in only a few isolated localities in southern Mexico and is  critically endangered due to the dramatic loss of its habitat.

Its preferred diet is ripe fruit, but it also eats flowers, buds, bark and small animals and insects.

These monkeys are the most dramatic example of a primate with a prehensile tail.  The underside of the tail tip is hairless and it can be used as an extra hand to perform many of the same functions as hands and feet, including carrying food and restraining adventurous infants.

The Mandrill is a primate closely related to baboons and even more closely to the Drill.  The Mandrill is the world's largest species of monkey.  The word "Mandrill" means "man-ape" according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Mandrills are found in the tropical rainforests of southern Nigeria, southern Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Congo.

They are social creatures and live in large groups, primarily including females and young, led by a single dominant male.  Most adult males are solitary.

They are terrestrial omnivores and acquire their food by foraging from the ground.  They eat mainly plants, insects and smaller animals.  Their natural predators are leopards, but their main threat is the human species who view them as pests where they are common.  A large grup of mandrills can cause significant damage to crops in a very short time.  They are hunted for food throughout their range, either with guns or pursuing dogs and nets.

The zoo's exhibits and animal habitat includes a couple very picturesque water falls.

Swans routinely preen themselves in the muddy water.  The Northern Heimisphere species of swan have pure white plumage.  Their legs are dark blackish gray.

Mute Swans are among the heaviest flying birds, with males (known as cobs) averaging about 27 pounds.

Young birds (called cygnets) are not the bright white of mature adults, and their bill is black, not orange, for the first year.  The adults are monogamous and build nests on large mounds in shallow water in the middle or at the very edge of a lake.  They reuse the same nest each year, restoring or rebuilding it as needed.

They feed on submerged aquatic vegetatioin, reached with their long necks.  The male is also responsible for defending the cygnets while on the water, and will sometimes attack small watercraft, such as jet skis or canoes, that it feels are a threat to its young.

The Mute Swan is not completely silent, but has a kind of guttural warning call it will give when approached.

A pair of alligators are reflected in the calm waters of one of the ponds at the zoo.

The White Rhinoceros or Square-Lipped Rhinoceros is one of the five species of rhinoceros that still exists.  It is the world's most massive land animal after the elephants.  Weight typically ranges from 3,200 pounds to almost 8,000 pounds.  The record-sized White Rhinoceros weighed about 10,000 pounds.

They have distinctive wide mouths used for grazing and their snouts have  two horns made of keratin.   Their ears can move independently to pick up more sounds, but the rhino depends mostly on smell.  The olfactory passages, which are responsible for smell are larger than their entire brain.

 They are found in grassland and savannah habitat.  They are herbivore grazers that eat grass, preferring the shortest grains.  If water is available, they drink twice a day, but if conditions get dry they can live four or five days without water. 

The last surviving population of wild northern White Rhinoceros are all located in Garamba Nationa Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo.  In August 2005, ground and aerial surveys conducted under the direction of African Parks Foundation and the African Rhino Specialist Group found only four animals.  A solitary adult male and a group of one adult male and two adult females.  The only remaining population live in the world's zoos.

The Bearded Bornean Hog is primarily found in Southeast Asia, Sumatra, Borneo, and the eastern Philippines.  It inhabits rainforests and mangrove forests.  

They eat fallen fruit, roots, shoots and insect larvae.  The also invade fields of root crops.  They often follow gibbons and macaques to pick up the fruit they drop.

After a gestation period of about 4 months, the female makes a nest of plant material and gives birth to 2 or 3 young, which stay with her for about a year.

This is a very short listing of the animals living at the Gladys Porter Zoo in brownsville.

Opened in 1971, the zoo is a result of one woman's deep concern for the plight of endangered wildlife.  In order to educate people about the importance of preserving the planet's dwindling resources, as well as to create a "survival certer" for rare and endangered species, Gladys Porter inspired the members of the Earl C. Sams Foundation to build the Gladys Porter Zoo.

Mrs. Porter's father, Earl C. Sams, had been President and Board Chairman of the J.C. Penney Company for more than 30 years.   He believed that wealth brought responsibility and great obligation; Gladys Porter operated on that premise as she administered Foundation funds established by her father.

Today, the Gladys Porter Zoo gives sanctuary to more than 1,500 animal species, many of which are threatened by extinction.

The material for this article came from Wikipedia.com, the on-line encyclopedia written by volunteers around the world, and from the exhibit  plaques and publications of the Gladys Porter Zoo.