[5][6] The zoo is also a botanical garden and the grounds contain significant exotic and native flora, including a Moreton Bay fig planted in 1877.

The zoo is notably home to the southern hemisphere's only giant panda centre, which opened in December 2009.

Xing Qiu and Yi Lan live as a male and female pair, alongside a Red panda called Ravi.

[citation needed] The modern zoo has moved away from the traditional housing of species separately in pairs.

Enclosures have been designed with the needs of the animals in mind, providing a more natural habitat, which also serves an educational purpose for visitors.

The South East Asian precinct combines Malayan tapir and dusky leaf monkeys in a shared exhibit together.

Other exhibits are immersed next to each-other such as those for northern white-cheeked gibbons and siamangs on neighbouring rainforest lake islands.

Pygmy hippopotamuses, mandrills and eastern black-and-white colobuses are amongst the African species conserved by the zoo.

The first part was finished in 1995 which gave exhibits to animals such as siamangs and sun bears (the latter no longer held by the zoo).

In January 1902, a keeper was seriously mauled by a brown bear (a species no longer kept by the zoo), having inadequately secured the animal before entering the enclosure.

The bear was shot by fellow keepers and the man rushed to hospital where he slowly recovered (but lost his right arm and suffered serious other permanent injuries, but lived for another ten and a half years).

[24] Contemporary (1894) accounts had the size of the rug, which was kept in the enclosure for the boa constrictor's comfort, at 7 by 6 feet (2.1 m × 1.8 m),[25] and after disgorgement weighed 5.5 pounds (2.5 kg), dried.

A. C. Minchin, the zoo director, and other staff intervened and freed the man who was then rushed to the hospital where he died two days later from his injuries.

[29][30] On Mother's Day 2009, the female orangutan, Karta, built an escape route out of plant material and tripped the hot wires with a stick.

[32] On 11 October 2022, it was reported that Zoos SA was investigating the deaths of seven female quokkas and two yellow-footed rock wallabies during September.

[33] The last captive Javan rhino was displayed at the Adelaide Zoo as an Indian rhinoceros due to the lack of knowledge about this species.

Yiray the quokka, one of the Australia-native threatened species at the Adelaide Zoo, gave birth to a baby in March 2022.

She was born at Adelaide Zoo in September 2010, and began to develop white fur and skin in late 2012; veterinarians eventually diagnosed her with vitiligo.

She and the seven brothers she shared an enclosure with would later be renamed after the titular characters of Walt Disney's 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Apart from requiring sunscreen and a shadier enclosure to protect her skin from sun damage, Snowy's vitiligo appears to have had minimal effect on her quality of life.