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Bao-Bao the Giant Panda (one of the most endangered species in the world) is the greatest star of the Berlin Zoo. He was presented to Germany by China as an official gift in 1980. His female partner Yan Yan is on loan from China for breeding purposes.

Monkeys and apes are at home in this house, and here you can watch gorillas, orang-utangs and chimpanzees swinging from tree to tree and playing in the straw. The venerable Eastern Lowland Gorillas, who raise several young in a group, are always a special hit with young and old alike. The big attraction, however, which draws the greatest crowds, is Sangha, a small baby gorilla, who is being raised by his carers.

The kings of the desert usually sit aloft the high rocks. The lions are fed at 2:30pm in summer and at 3:30pm in winter.

The African-style Giraffe House is the oldest house (1871–2). Visitors enjoy watching the giraffes as they nibble the leaves of a tree or bend down, in slow motion, to take a drink.

This house, in the cellar of the Predatory Animal House, houses the creatures of the night, including nocturnal reptiles and birds. Here you can admire striped bandicoots, fruit bats and slender loris. Asleep during the day, their hearing is outstanding and their eyes may light up uncannily in the dark.

These good-natured pachyderms have a healthy appetite: fully-grown male Indian elephants devour up to 50 kg (110 lb) of hay a day! Four elephants have been born in captivity.

Nowhere else in the city can you hear such singing, tweeting and whistling – cockatiels, birds-of-paradise, parrots, hornbills and humming-birds sound off in the Bird House aviaries.

Not for the faint-hearted: in the crocodile hall visitors cross a small wooden footbridge, only 2 m (6 ft) above the dozing creatures. The reptiles are fed their meat every other Monday at 3:30pm.

The greatest draw in the aquarium, where Caribbean and Amazonian habitats have been recreated, are the blacktip reef sharks and green morays. The electric eel, able to generate up to 800 volts, and the sting-rays are also popular.

Poisonous snakes, bird spiders and reptiles as well as other amphibians crawl and slither around behind glass on the second floor of the aquarium. A particularly spectacular event is the feeding of the spiders.