A top Scottish zoo has shared an adorable photo of its latest resident settling into his new home.
The Five Sisters Zoo in West Calder, near Livingston, welcomed its first red panda into the fold on Saturday, 1st May.
Posting about the new arrival on social media, the popular zoo revealed the first pic of the animal, who is named Rufio (after the Lost Boy of the same name in the film Hook), exploring his new enclosure.
The little male, who was sourced from South Lakes safari zoo in Cumbria, travelled north when his new specially built enclosure was finally completed by the FSZ staff.
The post read: "We are super excited to announce the arrival of Rufio, our Red Panda. He is settling in well to his new home!"
The team say the zoo's new purpose-built enclosure will be "one of the best Red Panda exhibits in the UK".
They added: "We have created an exhibit where visitors can view from both sides, with many existing mature trees and rope walk bridges for Rufio to climb and walk on, we are planting over 100 large Bamboo plants under the mature trees which will mimic the natural surroundings.
"We have created our red panda habitat in a way that mimics the steep forested slopes they are found living on in Asia."
Native to southern Asia, according to the WWF, the name panda is said to come from the Nepali word ‘ponya,’ which means bamboo eating animal.
About the same size as a small dog, with distinctive red and white fur and a large bushy tail, red pandas are predominantly tree-dwellers.
Speaking about the arrival, owner Brian Curran said: "After a horrendous 2020 it is great that we can share some good news about the arrival of Rufio from Cumbria zoo.
"We consider ourselves so lucky that Cumbria zoo are so kindly donating Rufio to Five Sisters Zoo as Red Pandas are one of the species of animal we have always wanted since becoming a zoo in 2005 and hopefully in the future we will source a mate for him."
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