The born of this baby animal is a real curiosity because there were only 19 of these animals born in all of the zoos of the world last year.
The calf which is 2 weeks old and 11,4 kg just had a medical examination today where its gender had been determined.
This is the third time that a specimen of this species was born in Sóstó Zoo. Its sister was born in 2011 and than its brother in 2015. The brother’s weight has risen with 25 decagrams per day, so a similar growth is expected in the case of this present baby.
Broutille, the 18 years old mother is very attentive, she nurses her baby 4-5 times a day. The calf, who was born after a 190 days long pregnancy, will eat solid food when getting to the age of 2-4 months. It will consist of hay, vegetables and fruits.
While its relative, the common hippopotamus was known already in ancient times, pygmy hippopotamus is one of the latest discovered species among big mammals. It happened only at the end of the 19 century. The reason for that is being shy animals with a hiding lifestyle. They live in the depth of the West-African tropical forests.
There are less than 2000 specimen living in the wild currently. In addition, they are endangered because of habitat loss and hunting.
The European Association of Zoos and Aquaria breeds them in the framework of a breeding program. Sóstó Zoo joined this program in 2006. Currently, there are the father who arrived from Denmark, the French mother and the two weeks old offspring living in the zoo. (The older calves have been moved already to other zoos.)
The gender of the calf was determined today, it is a male. Since there are much more female pygmy hippos born than males, we are more glad to have this male calf in this special case
