Feed a family of friendly kangaroos and pet a capybara still wet from its bath. Have your feet nibbled on by doctor fish and get pecked at by squawking parrots - this is no ordinary day at the zoo. Kobe Animal Kingdom has more in common with Japan's ever-popular animal cafes - places where you can drink coffee while you play with cats or rabbits or owls - than it does with your standard tigers-and-elephants zoological garden.

The animals here are all friendly (or at least not especially dangerous), and it's perfectly okay to feed them - in fact there are chow dispensers everywhere. Occupying an enormous greenhouse-like complex on Kobe's Port Island, Animal Kingdom also incorporates a botanical garden with lily ponds, an open-air aviary, and an outdoor zone (newly opened in Spring 2015) where many of the larger animals roam around.

There are more than a dozen different areas to explore, starting out with relatively tame interactive zones for cats and dogs, rabbits and guinea pigs. Next come parrots and giant tortoises, toucans and other tropical birds, sloths, Patagonian maras (hare-like rodents) and a herd of capybaras (which resemble giant hamsters).

See more photos and details at Animal Cafes.com.