VIDEO: It’s clipboards at the ready for zoo count

It is home to more than 2,500 animals, so keepers had their clipboards at the ready for the mammoth task on Tuesday.

Making his public debut during the count was one of the zoo’s newest arrivals - a greater one-horned rhino baby - born just four weeks ago.

Other bundles of joys to step out in public for the first time were one-week old twin silvery marmosets. The pair were born on New Year’s Eve and marked the end of a bumper year for babies at the zoo.

2012 saw the arrival of red panda twins Yin and Yang, lynx kitten triplets, Georgina the pygmy hippo and Jengo the giraffe.

The compulsory count is required as part of Whipsnade’s license. All of the information is logged into the International Species Information System, where it is used to manage the international breeding programmes for endangered animals.

>>Click here for a slideshow of images from the stocktake...