Watch: Black rhino balances on exercise ball
Work it!
A black rhino named Ayana is keeping busy during the cold Iowa winter by exercising with the equivalent of a Pilate’s ball for large animals.
Ayana, a five-year-old female, lives at the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, Iowa. Ayana's zoo keeper, Katie Twellman, took video of the 2,755-pound rhino playing with a hard plastic “boomer ball” and posted it on Facebook Monday morning.
"Today, Ayana is using her [boomer ball] like a pilates ball," the zoo wrote in the caption.
In a clip, which resembles of human Pilates class, Ayana balances on the ball and then playfully steps off and kicks it with her head.
See ya!
“She uses it like a soccer ball almost, she likes to hop on it and play around with it, or hit it with her nose,” said Ryan Bickel, a spokesman for the zoo.
Ayana and another black rhino are given the boomer balls as a way to keep the “animals active” and occupied when they are stuck indoors, according to Bickel.
Follow @MaryBowerman on Twitter.