Meet the Zoo: Alexandra and Nicholas

At many zoos, smaller animals are often overshadowed by their popular, larger cousins.

Not so for Alexandra and Nicholas at the Prospect Park Zoo, where there are no lions or tigers to steal their thunder.

This little pair of Pallas’s cats are about the size of house cats, but look much larger because of all their fur.

They were born in the Moscow Zoo in April of 1998. When they were just a year old, they moved to the San Diego Zoo where they gave birth to several litters of kittens. In 2008 they moved to the Prospect Park Zoo, where they’re spending their golden years. 

Alexandra and Nicholas are the first wild cats exhibited at Prospect Park Zoo since it was renovated in 1993. Visitors went wild over them.

Nicholas is easy to spot – he is the bigger of the two and has a sweet expression.  Alexandra is quite the opposite. She is small, wiry, and, let’s face it, mean. 

If there were any doubts about their wildness, Alexandra puts them to rest. Visitors bending down to admire her closely through the glass have been surprised to have her suddenly leap at the glass with a snarl.  She is probably annoyed at having her favorite pastime interrupted.  She likes to watch the tiny tamarin monkeys in the exhibits across the room, her eyes focused on what could be an interesting snack.  

If Alexandra doesn’t scare you away, you can stay and look for a couple of interesting adaptations these animals have evolved. Their heads are quite flat with tiny ears placed nearly on the sides of their heads, allowing them to hide behind rocks while stalking prey. Their fluffy coat is a great insulator against the cold temperatures of their native central Asian range. 

It's been estimated that these animals diverged from a leopard cat ancestor approximately 5.19 million years ago.

In the wild, Pallas’s cats eat small rodents called pikas as well as other rodents and birds.  In the zoo, we feed them a nutritionally balanced feline diet and mice.

The Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Prospect Park Zoo, has funded research in Mongolia to learn more about these cats. They also have had a long history of trying to help these little cats in central Asia, where they are threatened in the wild due to poaching and the illegal wildlife trade.

When you come to the Prospect Park Zoo, make sure to visit Alexandra and Nicholas and learn more about a fascinating little, but no less wild, cat.