Vienna Zoo welcomes baby ring-tailed lemur
The Vienna Zoo welcomed a ring-tailed lemur baby last March, but guests won’t be able to see the newborn for a while. The zoo is currently closed to the public, as Austria’s Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs has shut down the attraction and all museums in the surrounding area to limit the impact of the global health crisis, per the zoo’s website.
According to the Associated Press (AP), the ring-tailed lemur, also known as a katta, has been progressing smoothly in the once bustling but now quiet zoo.
“We had new offspring on March 21 this year by an experienced katta mother,” zookeeper Daniel Zupanc told the AP. “In the beginning, it’s like this: the babies usually only hang onto the mother’s breasts and sleep. But now, since roughly one-and-a-half weeks, the baby has gotten more active — it climbs on the back and looks at its surroundings. Sometimes, it even climbs on another mother.”
Because the sex of the baby katta is yet not known, the newborn has not been named. In the clip above, you can see it playfully clinging onto some of the female lemurs.
“The males usually keep their distance because the females tend to drive them off,” Zupanc explained. “So they have nothing to do with raising the babies at all.”
The baby will reportedly be able to eat fresh fruits and vegetables in a few weeks.
Kattas have been native to Madagascar for thousands of years now, the AP points out. However, the primates have become endangered due to deforestation in the region. The kattas at the Vienna Zoo are part of a breeding program designed to save the creatures from extinction.
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