Staff at London Zoo began their annual 'stock take' - individually counting and cataloguing all 10,000 animals. 

Keepers faces the challenging task of tallying up every mammal, bird, reptile and invertebrate at the zoo – from Humboldt penguins to Asiatic lions. 

Among those accounted for were Western Lowland gorilla mothers Mjukuu and Effie and their new female infants Juno and Venus.

London Zoo staff member taking stock of penguins (credit: SWNS).

Other new arrivals included three Asiatic lion cubs – Mali, Syanii and Shanti - an endangered species which, in the wild, is now only found in Gujarat's Gir Forest.  

Keepers also counted all 53 tiny evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered Darwin's frogs, brought to the Zoo from Chile, as part of an effort to save the species from a deadly fungus. 

Some of the animals registered include endangered species (credit: SWNS).

While counting large mammals is a relatively simple task, London Zoo's diverse array of invertebrates must also be accounted for, including a new thriving hive of honeybees, which are easily counted as one to avoid counting dozens of moving busy bees. 

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A requirement of London Zoo's zoological license, the annual stocktake takes keepers almost a week to fully complete and the information is shared with other zoos around the world via a database called ZIMS Species360, where it's used to help manage the worldwide conservation breeding programmes for endangered animals.