Compared to last year’s female pangolin Šiška, this year’s cub is not only tougher, but especially the mother Run Hou Tang now has enough breast milk. Photo by Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo
Only the second baby pangolin in Europe, which was born last week at the Prague Zoo, is a female. The findings of the Prague breeders were also confirmed by experts from Taiwan’s Taipei Zoo based on the photos sent. Readers of the iDNES.cz Portal will decide what the new cub will be called.
“The cub gains about ten grams every day. If everything goes as well as it has so far, he will weigh a quarter of a kilogram this week,” says the director of the Prague Zoo, Miroslav Bobek. “The mother has enough milk and the baby is growing fast. So far, it looks like we won’t have to feed him, as was the case with Šiška last year.”
People can already propose a name for the cub on the iDNES.cz website. Breeders will then choose their five favorites from the public’s suggestions sent by noon on July 16. The final name will then be decided by the public again in the second round of polls. It will last from July 18 to 23. The Prague Zoo is planning a christening ceremony for Sunday, July 28.
The small female Chinese Pangolin is already the second cub of the female Run Hou Tang and the male Guo Baa, who came to the Prague Zoo two years ago. Although the breeding of the only mammals with scales in human care is very demanding, last year the Prague Zoo was the first in Europe to successfully raise a cub, a female Šiška. Endangered pangolins are currently the most illegally traded mammals in the world – for both their meat and their scales.
The Indonesian Jungle Pavilion now remains open, but the mother and cub exhibit is still temporarily covered due to the shutdown. But visitors can go to the pavilion to meet one and a half year old Šiška and her father. The Prague Zoo will inform about the unveiling of the exhibit in the near future.