ZooBorns

There's a New Texan in Town

There's a new Texan in town, with big brown eyes, a white speckled coat, and a frisky gait. The Queens Zoo's longhorn calf lives with her mom and brother on the zoo's Farm exhibit. She seems particularly fond of her neighbors, the Scottish highland cows, who share her barnyard home.  

The female calf was born in May to Joan, a 7-year-old cow. The calf weighed 60 pounds at birth and is active and energetic. 

Texas longhorns are a domestic breed of cattle that developed as a result of cross breeding between feral and domestic cattle and are a popular symbol of the American Southwest.

Texas longhorns are known for their beauty and intelligence, and are named for their signature horns that can extend up to 6 feet from tip to tip. These hardy animals thrive in the Southwest's rugged terrain, and are the foundation stock of the region’s cattle industry. 

Photo Credit:  Julie Larsen Maher

Watch As Queens Zoo's Pronghorn Fawns Zip Around

Photo Credit: Julie Larsen Maher

The Queens Zoo saw the arrival of four Pronghorn Antelope fawns. The fawns were born to two different mothers one week apart, and include one set of female twins and a second male-female set, bringing the Zoo’s Pronghorn herd up to a total of eight.

Each fawn has a coat of soft brown fur and enormous dark-brown eyes. Already they can be seen prancing around their exhibits on their signature long legs, which give the species its incredible speed. Pronghorn are one of the world’s fastest land animals, second only to the cheetah. They also rank highly for endurance, second to Arctic caribou for the longest-distance migration in the Western Hemisphere.

Two of the fawns can be seen on the Farm, where visitors can watch zookeepers bottle-feed them a nutrient-rich formula several times a day, as you see in this video.

The two younger fawns remain in the Plains habitat which they share with a herd of bison just as they would in the wild. Those babies spend much of their time running through the large, open space. 

Baby Lemurs Born at Busch Gardens

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay welcomed two endangered baby red-ruffed lemurs on April 21. The babies are the first lemurs to be born at Jambo Junction, home to the parks’ animal ambassadors, since parents Maditra and Bozeny arrived as babies three years ago.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Busch Gardens Tampa Bay

The sex of the babies has yet to be determined, but they are developing well overall, according to trainers. They are getting braver each day, and exploring their habitat under the watchful eye of Mom and Dad. They currently weigh about 300 grams or a little more than half a pound; lemurs average about 80 grams, or .17 of a pound, at birth. They grow to be about 8 to 10 pounds.

March out with Two Little Lambs

ZooBorns usually eschews domestic breeds but the recent announcement of twin Jacob's four-horned lambs at the Wildlife Conservation Society's Queens Zoo seemed appropriate for spring. Jacob's sheep may be descendants of Norse breeds brought to England by the Vikings during raids over 1,000 years ago.

Photo credits: Julie Larsen Maher / WCS's Queens Zoo

Watching the video below, ZooBorns co-founders can't help but think it vindicates their moderately crazy 10th grade English teacher and his analysis of Blake's poem The Lamb, "It's exciting to pet the lamb and see him spring about and all that." - Mr. B, 1996

Prancing Pronghorns in Queens

Just last week, the Queens Zoo debuted three little pronghorn fawns. The world's second fastest animal, pronghorns zip across the plains at speeds of up to 60 mph from Canada to Northern Mexico.