The pygmy marmoset is the world's smallest primate. It could bathe in a coffee cup and cover its face with a quarter. The hulking Clydesdale horse was used to storm knights into battle long before it pulled the Budweiser wagon.

Those animals, and 600 others, are abuzz at Bismarck's Dakota Zoo.

With the onset of warm weather, animals who spent the winter indoors are once again on display. Otters frolic in the cool water while children giggle with amusement and adults watch with envy. The monkeys are howling, the bison are scowling, the wolves growling and the fowl … fowling.

The zoo has some new denizens this year. Sherman, an American alligator, and his smaller mate, Sandra, moved in this spring from Rapid City, S.D. Young passers-by speculate that the motionless Sherman might be asleep or dead. That's just what the 10-foot-long, 400-pound Sherman wants you to think.

Also new this year are three moose calves born earlier this month.

"They grow like weeds," zoo director Terry Lincoln said of the young moose.

Born at around 30 pounds, the calves weigh about 500 pounds by their first birthday, Lincoln said. Dakota Zoo has one of the most succesful captive moose breeding programs in the world, he said.

Other spring babies include two goats, two Dall sheep, a longhorn calf, a highland calf, a bison and a reindeer. Two pronghorn antelope will give birth any day.

Babies often go to other zoos or, in the case of some primates, get released into the wild. The latter is a gratifying experience for zoo personnel, Lincoln said.

If all goes well, Dakota Zoo will soon host tiger cubs for the summer, too, Lincoln said. The cubs would be a preview of sorts for the permenant big-cat exibit the zoo hopes to construct over the next couple of years. A fundraising campaign is just $200,000 short of its $2.3 million goal. In addition to the big-cat exhibit, which will house Siberian tigers and snow leopards, the money will fund a new primate center and an "animals of the world" building for red pandas, meerkats, tortoise, and a variety of other mammals and reptiles.

Dakota Zoo is one of the few zoos in the nation unsupported by taxes, Lincoln said. Though admission fees, concession sales, and train ride tickets support day-to-day operations, the zoo relies heavily on donations for expansion, he said.

Because of the zoo's limited budget, they will probably never house elephants or giraffes. Huge African animals cost too much to keep warm during the long, cold winter.

"We choose to go with animals that work out well - North American natives," Lincoln said. "Animals that can basically take care of themselves."

There seem to be enough animals to keep vistors interested, though. Lincoln couldn't name a single most popular zoo resident, but cited the otters and Clydesdale horses as crowd favorites.

"But I see a lot of people heading over to the gator," Lincoln said as another group of children shriek in terrified delight at the huge reptile.

Sherman doesn't move.