Animals have mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival

( chinadaily.com.cn )

Updated: 2015-09-29

Zookeepers in the Chengdu Zoo fed animals with special “mooncakes” to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional Chinese event, on Sept 27.

The mooncake for ring-tailed lemurs was made of rice, corn flour, jam and beef. On the top of the cake, zookeepers wrote “Happy Mid-Autumn Day” in Chinese with small carrots. When the mooncake was ready, the smart lemurs sat in a row to wait for their holiday meal.

Herbivorous animals such as hippopotami also enjoyed a mooncake made of grass, apples and petals.

“Making special mooncakes for animals is actually an effort to enrich the variety of animals’ food and improve their diet quality,” said a zookeeper of the Chengdu Zoo.

The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar. The full moon on that night represents reunion and happiness. People usually eat mooncakes to celebrate the festival.

A family of three hippopotami in the Chengdu Zoo have a special mooncake for the Mid-Autumn Festival on Sept 27. [Photo/Xinhua]

Mooncakes for herbivorous animals are made of grass, apples and petals. [Photo/Xinhua]

 

By Shi Zihan and edited by Peter Nordlinger