For the first time, a southern tamandua pup has been born at the Los Angeles Zoo.
“This is actually the first successful birth for both mom and dad, and it was born on [Aug.] 28th and it's doing wonderful,” Mallory Peebles, senior zoo keeper told KNX News’ Margaret Carrero. “It's continuously gaining weight on a daily basis.”
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Peebles described a tamandua as a mixture of an “anteater and a sloth.”
“So if you kind of combined both of those, you kind of make up a tamandua, because they've got the long tongue just like an anteater would have,” she said. And then they've got these amazing claws that allow them to grip onto things just like a sloth. They also have a prehensile tail, which they utilize kind of like a possum to actually wrap around tree branches and stuff for more stability, and they can actually even hang just from their tails.”
The gender of the animal is unknown at the time. Peebles said the animal’s sexual organs are internal and so when the pup is strong enough, the zoo will draw its blood to determine whether it’s a boy or girl.
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