Birth of a rare animal – aardvark, first time in Russia

12.04.2013, 04:38

An African baby aardvark is being reared in a zoo in the Ural. It was born in February. This is almost a unique case. These rare animals very rarely breed in captivity.As such, the aardvark does not have any close relatives. Besides, this exotic beast with the body of an ant-eater, rabbit ears, pig snout and the tail of a kangaroo was itself on the brink of extinction in the beginning of the 21st century. That an aardvark was born in a zoo in the Ural city of Yekaterinburg is considered to be sheer luck by zoologists. In zoos in foreign lands, the cases of birth of these unusual mammals may be counted on the tips of one’s fingers. Now, the baby aardvark weighs nearly 8 pounds and has grown to 90 cm. The mother feeds her little one and the baby is doing well. It looks like this exotic baby animal has already adapted to the cold, although the natural environment for aardvarks is the hot Africa.Experts worried for the life of the baby for the first five days. The baby was not getting up on its feet at all. And it's not just the fact, that after birth, aardvarks move with great difficulty. The calf was just too weak – it was born a little prematurely. It needed special care. After all, its weight at birth was slightly more than 1900 grams. Before and immediately after the birth of the baby, the zoo workers and veterinarians kept a round-the-clock watch. An infrared camera was installed in the cage to be able to notice the labour in time; and then, to track the status of the female and her newborn calf. More Source: Voice of Russia.