New Births at the Zoo

Prickly mother

At our zoo, an especially interesting animal family is the Indian crested porcupines, classified as rodents. Despite their quills, females are very loving and caring mothers. Ours gave birth to two young at the end of March. At birth they already had hair and immediately opened their eyes; their quills were soft, hardening a few hours after birth. The young suckle milk from teats along the side of the mother’s belly. Soon they will be nibbling food on their own. The female is a caring, gentle and loving mother. She licks them, and the young nestle against her prickly coat. They communicate with each other by rattling their quills, squeaking and grunting. When the female defends her young, she raises her quills, stamps her hind feet, rattles her hollow quills and growls. The male also helps raise the young. 

Striped baby

The zebra herd consists of male Bili and females Hanka and Srečka. Srečka was born years ago at ZOO Ljubljana and, on Mother’s Day itself, became a mother of a striped foal. We named her Sanaa, which in Swahili means ‘work of art’. Sanaa is a unique work of art, as zebras differ in their stripe pattern, much like we differ in our fingerprints. No two zebras are the same. Srečka constantly stays by the little one and chases the other zebras away so that Sanaa can memorise her mother’s stripe pattern and always find her in the herd. Judging by her long legs, we can tell how big Sanaa will be when she grows up.  

Shared underground burrow

The male and female mara are faithful to each other for life. Several pairs live in the same area of the enclosure and share an underground burrow reserved only for their newborns. The young are safe from predators inside, and only emerge when a female approaches to nurse them. She only lets her own young nurse, so the females take turns at the burrow and jointly protect the young. We have spotted the first of them, but we do not yet know how many there are.
The male constantly guards his partner against predators and defends her aggressively against possible rivals. He even marks her with urine and anal gland secretions.

Leona growing up
At the end of March, Leona turned four. She is a real young lady. If you didn’t recognise her by name, let us whisper that she is a member of the chimpanzee family — mother Neža, father Boris, aunt Nika and grandmother Mojca. Leona skilfully climbs the wooden climbing frames, jumps from branch to branch and swings on hemp ropes. She loves to explore, so her keepers have put a special ''cupboard'' with small openings in her home, which mimics a tree trunk and can be filled with various treats. For her these are sunflower seeds and mealworm larvae. Since the older chimpanzees have priority at the cupboard, Leona also received a giant plush lion and a box of treats as a gift. Happy birthday, Leona!

Our keepers will follow and document the young animals’ growth at ZOO Ljubljana, so we will keep you updated on events. Meanwhile, please stay at home so we can meet again soon!