Conservationists discovered the new arrival snuggled up with its eight-year-old mum Oni and six-year-old dad Koos after it had been born overnight on January 4. 

The calf, born with large droopy ears, hairless wrinkled skin and giant claws, is currently being hand-reared every evening by zookeepers who are providing dedicated care, feeding the baby every few hours through the night for around five weeks, to help it gain strength. 

 It’s nice but it’s also sad that animals are evolving to have babies successfully in captivity. Staff have nicknamed the youngster Dobby due to its resemblance to the much-loved Harry Potter character. 

Aardvarks are native in sub-Saharan Africa where they are threatened by habitat loss as a result of agricultural development, which also bring them into conflict with local farmers. They are also hun.ted for their meat. 

The nocturnal animals use their long noses and keen sense of smell to sniff out ants and termites, which they lap up with a long tongue measuring up to 25cm, covered in sticky saliva. They use their powerful claws to tear open termite mounds, as well as to dig underground burrows in which they sleep. 

This is the very first aardvark to be born at the zoo and so it’s a momentous landmark. Aardvarks are quite secretive creatures, which are mostly only ever active in darkness, and so some aspects of how they go about their lives remain relatively unknown. 

Caring for species like aardvarks in zoos enables us to learn more about them – how they live, their behaviors and their biology. So amazing how a baby loves its mama from the start. This new calf joins a conservation breeding program that only a handful of zoos are part of globally. 

Wonderful & pray it will NOT be the last! Our Globe is in a difficult time, we must do what we can, to SAVE OUR PLANET !!!
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