August 15th, 2023 – Rizzo has made her first trip around the sun! Abilene Zoo is over the moon to be celebrating little Rizzo’s first birthday. In honor of her birthday, one of her keepers, Thalia (who happens to share a birthday with Rizzo), made her a festive, number 1-shaped birthday cake! This cake was made from some of the Angolan Colobus monkey’s favorite things to eat such as their special biscuits, greek yogurt, dried bananas, and raisins. Along with her cake, Rizzo got to enjoy some other snacks like lettuce and sweet potato!
These colobus monkeys typically become fully grown between the ages of 5 to 8 years old, which means Rizzo still has a bit more growing to do! Within her first year of life, she’s not only grown in size, but experienced other changes as well! For example, within the first 1-3 months of her life, she changed from a pink shade to a white shade. Then, around 5-6 months of life, she began growing into her natural colorations and resembling the rest of her troop. Besides her physical changes, Rizzo has already developed quite the personality! Thalia says that she, “is extremely energetic like her siblings Artemis and Betina.” She can be seen jumping around like her older siblings, while also watching and learning from their activities. Abilene Zoo and our guests have loved getting to watch Rizzo grow and learn her way in life!
Thalia also says, “Rizzo is a very spirited little colobus monkey; the team and I can’t wait to see how sassy this little girl grows up to be.” Be sure to visit soon and keep up with our social media to see Rizzo continue to thrive and experience life as a monkey here at Abilene Zoo!
