Twin pandas at Zoo Atlanta turn 3 on Friday

Atlanta’s twin pandas will celebrate their third birthdays Friday, July 15, and among the invited dignitaries and panda-maniacs will be a few pocket monsters.

The virtual Pokemon that hover inside the digital world of "Pokemon Go" will be on hand as Mei Lun and Mei Huan tear into their specially made frozen "cakes."

Pokemon “trainers” have already been seen wandering through the zoo and greater Grant Park, their cellphones at the ready, as they hunt the elusive creatures.

The pandas have even gotten in on the act.

Wes Mayer, communications and social media coordinator at the zoo, has collected a nice menagerie of Pokemon while traveling about the zoo — including Pidgey, Poliwag, Jigglypuff, Slowpoke, Venonat, Caterpie and Krabby — but says “the more you play, the cooler the Pokemon get.”

Pokemon are cute, but panda twins are cuter, and they exist IRL. Zoo Atlanta's pandas are the only pair of panda twins in the U.S. The offspring of Lun Lun and Yang Yang, they weighed only a few ounces at birth, but have gained steadily since then, tipping the scales now at 162 pounds (Mei Lun) and 158 pounds (Mei Huan).

The pandas' first year, compressed into a two-minute video, can be seen on YouTube.

Also cute are another pair of twins who will be at the birthday party. Elouise and Iris Garner are twin sisters from Greensboro, N.C., who were born on the same day as the pandas and will be traveling down for the celebration. Their mother, Stephanie, watched the news of the pandas’ arrival after giving birth in a North Carolina hospital.

“This is a big celebration for our family,” Stephanie Garner wrote in an email, “one that feels very full circle for us. We’ve loved watching Mei Lun and Mei Huan grow through the years on the Panda Cam.”

Elouise and Iris were born 10 weeks early. As they've struggled against challenges, Garner kept in mind the goal of making the trip to Atlanta to share a birthday with the panda twins, who also grew strong against significant odds. "Iris and Elouise have been so brave and feisty and determined and I admire them so much already," she wrote. "The girls are thrilled to meet the pandas and looking forward to a very special birthday together."

The zoo is promoting a "Bring Your Bestie" campaign for the day. Visitors can buy a full-priced ticket and get another for half-price. (To get in the mood, visitors can poke their heads through a twin panda cutout to pose for a "Bamboo Besties" photograph at the zoo.)

Zhu Zhu, the giant panda mascot, will attend the festivities, which will reach a dramatic climax at 2 p.m. when their artfully constructed ice cakes are presented to Mei Lun and Mei Huan.

Not invited to the party is the Timor python that briefly escaped from an off-exhibit enclosure Saturday, and was recovered Sunday in a kori bustard habitat. It has been returned to its enclosure.

There are 15 Pokestops at the zoo, all of which are in the publicly accessible areas. Zoo officials, using the strongest terms, urge “Pokemon Go” players not to stray beyond those areas.