Tag archives for Baby Animals
Baby Panda Born at the National Zoo
Posted by A baby panda was born on September 16 at Washington, D.C.’s National Zoo. The new baby is about as long as an adult’s hand, and only weighs about a quarter of a pound. Panda babies are pink when they are born–they don’t look like adult pandas at all! No one knows if the baby is a male or female yet, but the zoo will be able to tell in about a month. The new cub will receive a name when it is 100 days old, following the Chinese custom.
The last panda baby born at the zoo was named Tai Shan, seen in the picture above.
Read more about the baby panda at the National Zoo website.
Get the facts on giant pandas in the Creature Feature.
Photograph by Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP
Two red panda cubs born this summer at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. just got their names. The two female red panda cubs were born on the stormy evening of June 17, 2011. Their new names reflect the wild weather on the night of their birth. One of the cubs is named Pili, which means “clap of thunder” in Chinese. The other is named Damini, which means “lightning” in Nepalese.
Red pandas are endangered animals that live in the mountains. They are much smaller than giant pandas, growing to about the size of a housecat. They live in Nepal, Myanmar, and China.
See pictures of Pili and Damini on the National Zoo’s website.
Get facts on red pandas on National Geographic.
Watch a video about another baby red panda on National Geographic Kids.
Photograph courtesy Mehgan Murphy, Smithsonian’s National Zoo
This morning, National Geographic Society employees spotted new arrivals in the courtyard–mallard ducklings!
Ken Geiger, senior editor for technology at National Geographic magazine, snapped this picture. Two ducklings were in the courtyard’s decorative pool at the time, and after taking the photo, Geiger and another staffer fashioned a duckling ramp to help them climb out.
Get the facts on mallard ducks on National Geographic Kids.
Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic
Panda cubs traditionally receive their names 100 days after they are born, and today Zoo Atlanta officials and DreamWorks Animation announced the name! The cub was named Po after the character voiced by Jack Black in the movies Kung Fu Panda and Kung Fu Panda 2 (in theaters May 26th). The cub received his new name with a traditional Chinese naming ceremony, including a dragon dance! Jack Black even came to the ceremony to meet his character’s namesake.
Po is the only giant panda to be born in the United States in 2010.
Get to know Zoo Atlanta’s pandas by watching the Panda Cam!
Get the facts on giant pandas on National Geographic Kids.
Photograph by Pouya Dianat
New Baby Elephant at the San Diego Zoo
Zookeepers at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park welcomed a new male elephant calf into the herd last week! The calf’s mother also has an older calf, who is almost four years old. The new baby hasn’t been named yet, but he has been busy exploring with his mother. The park’s elephant herd gave birth to four male calves in 2010.
See pictures of the baby elephant on the ZooBorns website.
Visit the San Diego Zoo Safari Park website to see a video of the baby.
Get the facts on African elephants in the Creature Feature.
Photograph by Ken Bohn, San Diego Zoo Safari Park
All babies love to play and young chimpanzees are no exception. Researchers in Kibale National Park in Uganda have noticed something: young female chimps will play with sticks like they are dolls! “The stick serves no immediate function, they just carry it–sometimes for a few minutes, other times for hours,” says an e-mail by study leader Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist at Harvard University. “Carriers regularly take sticks into the nests they rest in during the day, something that isn’t done with other objects. Individuals are [also] known to play with their sticks while in their nests.”
Similar behavior has noticed with animals in zoos, too. Captive female monkeys have been noticed to prefer doll toys, while the males play with trucks.
Read more about baby chimps and their toys on National Geographic News
Get the facts on chimps in the Creature Feature.
Photograph by Michael Poliza, National Geographic/Getty Images
Seven lion cubs were born at the National Zoo this summer. Lioness Shera had four cubs, while lioness Nababiep had three. Now all seven cubs have been named!
Shera’s cubs are named John, Fahari, Zuri, and Lelie. Lelie, meaning “lily,” is the winning female name from the Name a Cub contest. The name was submitted by a first-grade classroom at Marshall Elementary School in Manassas, Virginia. Nababiep’s cubs are named Aslan, Lusaka, and Baruti. Baruti is the winning male name from the contest. It means “teacher” and was submitted by a daycare class from the Bright Horizons Child Care & Education at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Virginia.
Visit the National Zoo’s website to learn how the other names were chosen.
Want to help save lions? Visit Letters to Lions to find out how to send a letter to African leaders.
Photograph by Mehgan Murphy, Smithsonian National Zoo
Baby animals are always adorable, but this fluffy young cub at Denmark’s Aalborg Zoo also has an adventurous side. The zoo has released pictures of the three-month-old Siberian tiger cub exploring her new surroundings.
Siberian tigers are the biggest cats in the world. They are an endangered species, with only 400-500 animals living out of captivity.
You can see more pictures of the baby tiger and other baby animals on the Zooborns website.
Get the facts on tigers in the Creature Feature.
Find out more about the Big Cats Initiative.
(AD) Zooborns also published a book of the new animals born at the world’s zoos. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums gets 10% of each book sale!
Photograph courtesy of Tambako
Florida’s Zoo Miami welcomed a new arrival last week–a new pygmy hippo calf! The calf’s mom, Kelsey, has lived at Zoo Miami since 1993. Pygmy hippos are extremely rare. There are only a few thousand living in the wild in West Africa.
See pictures of the hippo calf on the ZooBorns website.
Want to visit the pygmy hippos? Visit the Zoo Miami website to plan your trip.
Get the facts on hippos in the Creature Feature.
In August, seven cubs were born at the National Zoo! The Zoo is giving the public a chance to name two of the cubs, one male and one female. If you want to submit a name, create a 90-second video containing the name you think would be best for one of the cubs and explain why you chose that name.
U.S. residents over the age of 13 should submit their videos by midnight on Sunday, December 5. If you are younger than 13 but you still want to participate, make it a family project and have your parent or guardian submit the video.
Learn more about the cub-naming contest on the National Zoo’s website.
Help save lions! Find out how by visiting Letters to Lions.
This week, the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. welcomed four new arrivals–baby lions! This is Shera’s first litter of cubs, and so far the family is doing wonderfully. The cubs won’t be out in the lion yard until late in the fall, according to keepers.
Learn more about the baby lions and watch a video on the National Zoo’s website.
Get the facts on lions in the Creature Feature.
The Big Cats Initiative, led by National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert, hope to stop the decline of lion and other big cat populations. Learn more on National Geographic.
Locate lions and watch Crittercam videos in the Crittercam: African Adventure game on National Geographic Kids.
Photograph courtesy of Smithsonian National Zoo
The National Zoo’s female red panda Shama gave birth to her first cub on June 16! This is the first red panda born at the Zoo in15 years. Red pandas are an endangered species–there are only about 2,500 red pandas left in the wild. But if you visit the Zoo, you may be able to see Shama and her little one from the upper viewing platform on the Asia Trail.
Learn more about the baby red panda on the National Zoo’s website.
Get the facts on giant pandas on National Geographic Kids.
Photograph courtesy of Mehgan Murphy, Smithsonian National Zoo
Photograph courtesy Colorado Division of Wildlife/AP
See photos of domestic cats on National Geographic Kids.
Photograph by Meghan Murphy/National Zoo
Earlier this month, two clouded leopard cubs were born at the National Zoo’s Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Virginia. This is the first successful clouded leopard birth at the center in 16 years!
Read the whole post »
A baby blue whale has been caught on film! Researchers off of the coast of Costa Rica captured the baby on camera while visiting the “Dome,” a warm-water region that attracts blue whales from hundreds of miles around.
Baby blue whales are far from tiny. At birth, they are an average of 25 feet (7.6 meters) long.
The footage of the baby, as well as images of other blue whales, can be seen on National Geographic’s Kingdom of the Blue Whale. The show airs tonight, March 10, on the National Geographic Channel at 8 p.m. ET.
See a video of the baby on a clip from Kingdom of the Blue Whale on National Geographic News.
Learn more about Kingdom of the Blue Whale on National Geographic Channel.
Think you’re a blue whale expert? Quiz Your Noodle and find out!
Keepers at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., were surprised when they counted three black and rufous giant elephant-shrew in their exhibit instead of two! The female elephant-shrew in the exhibit probably gave birth to the new baby in January. The baby elephant-shrew is doing well and can be seen in the National Zoo’s Small Mammal House.
See a video of the baby and learn more about the new elephant-shrew on the National Zoo’s website.
Watch a wild elephant shrew and her baby in this video.
A western lowland gorilla named Mandara gave birth to her sixth baby in the Great Ape House on January 10. The zoo isn’t sure if the tiny gorilla is a boy or a girl yet, because Mom’s keeping the baby all to herself for now.
Western lowland gorillas are listed as a critically endangered species, so these births are especially important. There have been seven successful western lowland gorilla births at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. since 1991.
See baby pictures and watch a video at the National Zoo.
Get the facts on mountain gorillas in the Creature Feature.
