An Atascadero zoo welcomed the birth of a baby mongoose lemur — and soon you’ll be able to see the cuddly creature and its mother.
The newborn and its parents will stay at the Charles Paddock Zoo as part of the Species Survival Plan until it is ready to leave for another zoo to participate in the breeding program to continue the species’ genetic diversity, according to the release. the zoo in a press release.
Mongoose lemurs – which occur naturally only in Madagascar – are considered a “critically endangered” species due to deforestation and poaching, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List, which tracks endangered species.
At the zoo, the new lemur and its parents will be on display, but they will have access to the back of their enclosure to avoid stress and overstimulation, the release said.
According to the release, the newborn mongoose lemur, or elemur mongoz, will spend the first three weeks of its life clinging to its mother’s fur before it can survive on its own.
When the baby lemur is about five weeks old, it will begin to venture out and try new foods, eventually adopting an omnivorous diet of fruits, flowers, leaves and insects.
The sex of the zoo’s newest lemur will be unknown for the first few weeks, but over the next six weeks it will develop a distinctive red-orange ‘beard’ of fur if it is a male, or white fur if it is a female, as stated in the release.
Guests can visit the mongoose lemur and more than 200 other species at the Charles Paddock Zoo in Atascadero between 10am and 5pm, seven days a week. Ticket information is available at charlespaddockzoo.org.
