An Atascadero zoo welcomed the birth of a baby mongoose lemur — and you can see the cuddly creature and its mother soon.
The newborn and its parents will stay at the Charles Paddock Zoo as part of its Species Survival Plan until it’s ready to leave for another zoo to participate in its breeding program to carry on genetic diversity in the species, the zoo said in a news release.
Mongoose lemurs — found natively 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 exhibit but will have access to the back of their space to avoid stress and over stimulation, the release said.
According the release , the newborn mongoose lemur, or elemur mongoz, will spend the first three weeks of life clinging to its mother’s fur before it can survive on its own.
At around five weeks old, the baby lemur will begin to venture out and try new foods, and will eventually adopt an omnivorous diet of fruits, flowers, leaves and bugs.
The gender of the zoo’s newest lemur will be unknown for the first few weeks, but will develop a distinctive reddish-orange “beard” of fur if it’s a male or will grow white fur if it’s a female over the next six weeks, the release said.
Guests can visit the mongoose lemur and more than 200 other species at the Charles Paddock Zoo in Atascadero between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., seven days a week. Ticket information is available at charlespaddockzoo.org.
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