Taronga Zoo’s newborn male Asian Elephant calf continued to make progress overnight. His dedicated keepers, who monitored the newborn throughout the night, were delighted that the calf has begun to suckle from his mother, Porntip, unassisted and moving around without help. This is an encouraging sign after he survived a protracted labour before being delivered alive against the odds yesterday morning at 3.27 am. Both he and his mother are well and will be staying in the warm barn today.
Despite overwhelming evidence that her first calf had not survived a protracted labour, Taronga’s Asian Elephant Porntip delivered a male calf alive at 3.27 am today. The Zoo’s Director, Cameron Kerr, said: “Her dedicated keepers reported the amazing news early this morning that the calf had been born and was showing signs of life to Taronga’s veterinary team who immediately rushed to the elephant barn to assist Porntip and the calf.”
It seems to be a popular time of year for zoo moms and their babies to do some snuggling out in the open air. Today we bring you a mother meerkat and her young pup at the San Diego Zoo thanks to Flickr photographer mliu92. Perhaps they are emerging to enjoy spring weather (is it never not spring in San Diego)?
When mama meerkat is away... the pups will play...
Relatives of llamas and alpacas, the vicuña is the national animal of its native Peru. Vicuña fur is extremely soft and warm and in ancient Incan culture only royalty were allowed to wear it.
Flickr photographer George Griffiths captured these beautiful shots of a proud mother Vicuña inspecting her new fawn at the UK's Chester Zoo on Feb. 25th.
Disney's Animal Kingdom has a new arrival! The newborn female Western Lowland Gorilla is doing well and has already become an integral part of the gorilla family group that includes first-time mother, Kashata, father Gino and two other females. The infant has been named Lilly — in honor of the late Alecia Lilly, Ph.D., who was senior scientist and vice president of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International.
The snowstorm on February 13 may have caused Riverbanks Zoo to close, but the snow did not keep the Zoo’s newest addition away. When Zoo keepers entered the giraffe barn that morning, they were greeted by a lanky little boy who had not been there the night before.
In May of 2009 we brought you the story of a baby gorilla named Hasani who had been abandoned by his mom but was adopted by a surrogate mother, Bawang, at the San Francisco Zoo. Today we check back in on mother and baby to find that they are doing very very well. In the first pictures, mother Bawang is tickling little Hasani.
Photo credits: Marianne Hale
This last picture is actually Hasani with Aunti Nneka but you get the idea.
In this adorable video, a baby Coquerel's Sifaka lemur born at the St. Louis Zoo January 23rd, tries to go for a climb. In the second half of the video, look for the baby's tiny head poking out from within mom's fur.
These endangered lemurs have a matriarchal society where females eat first and pick their lemur boyfriends.
Not yet a month old, San Diego Zoo's newest Malayan tapir is starting to nibble on solid food already. The tapir has been named "Tembikai" which means "watermelon" in Malay. The Malayan tapir is an endangered species, so this birth will help conservation research efforts. It is also significant because the mother, Chantek, is 25 years old, which is quite old for a mama tapir but despite this Tembikai is doing well. He weighed 13 pounds at birth on Jan. 29th and is now 30 pounds.
Photo credit Ken Bohn / San Diego Zoo
For now, baby tapir and mom are living behind the scenes.
Now almost seven months old, the Taronga Zoo's animated little elephant calf, Luk Chai, is growing up to be more than a handful. Thanks to keeper Bobby Jo Vial, we have these wonderful photos of Luk Chai taken a few months back.
