There was an important Supreme Court ruling early in the day. An international fugitive was possibly on a flight from Moscow to Cuba. The Dow was diving. But in the nation’s capital, Rusty the red panda, who disappeared from the National Zoo, hijacked the news cycle on Monday.

To help find Rusty, a raccoon-size mammal with a striped tail and moon-shaped face, the zoo turned to social media, and suddenly half of official Washington broke from Serious Events to tune in to the saga of the runaway panda.

On Twitter and Facebook, the hunt for 11-month-old Rusty, whom the zoo acquired three weeks ago as a partner to a female panda named Shama, exploded in a mix of concern, humor and, this being Washington, the goring of political oxen.

“Rusty the Red Panda eats shoots and leaves,” Jake Tapper, CNN’s chief Washington correspondent, filed to Twitter.