SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Check out this video of the Woodland Park Zoo‘s latest zoo baby, newly-named eight-week-old ocelot kitten Evita, as she gets a health exam (and a clean bill of health) from the zoo staff. The best part: angry kitteh noises at 0:32 and the end of the clip. You mad, in the cutest way possible.
Now nearly three-and-a-half pounds, Evita was born on January 15th to ten-year-old Bella and fifteen-year-old Brazil, as part of one of the zoo’s species survival plans, cooperative breeding programs to ensure genetic diversity and demographic stability across North American zoos and aquariums. Bella and Brazil previously had a set of twin ocelot females in the fall of 2008 (video here), so they’re already experienced parents–or at least Bella is. In the wild, only the mother ocelots care for the kittens, so Bella is busy nursing and bonding with Evita in an off-view birthing den (here’s some cute closed-circuit footage), while daddy Brazil is still on display in the Tropical Rain Forest Exhibit.
To see little Evita in person, you’ll have to wait another month. The kitten is not expected to be on public view until mid- or late April.
And in other zoo baby news, today the wallaroo joey born last September ventured out of his mother’s pouch for the first time. According to the zoo, “it still spends most of its time in mama’s pouch. Optimum time to catch it out of the pouch is during feedings in the mornings and end of day, about 3:30-3:45 …with a lot of patience.”