Chester Zoo is very happy to tell everyone about the birth of its first aardvark…

Congratulations on the safe arrival of this beautiful and valuable gift.

Great news! It’s kind of cute in a bad way. Best of luck to the Chester Zoo!

When the baby was born at night on January 4, researchers found it curled up with its eight-year-old mother, Oni, and its six-year-old father, Koos.

Born with huge, hanging ears, rough, hairless skin, and huge claws, the calf is now being hand-reared every evening by zookeepers who are giving it their full attention. Since about five weeks ago, the baby has been fed several times at night to help it get stronger.

It’s both beautiful and sad to see animals changing to have babies in captivity.

The boy was given the name Dobby by staff because he looked a lot like the popular Harry Potter character.

Aardvarks are native to sub-Saharan Africa. As farming has grown, they have lost their homes, which has put them in danger and led to fights with local farmers. People also want to kill them for their meat.

The animals come out at night and hunt for ants and termites with their long tongues, which can be up to 25 cm long and are covered in sticky saliva. They use their good sense of smell and long sinuses to do this.

They dig holes under the ground to sleep in and use their sharp claws to tear down termite mounds.

This is the first aardvark to be born at the zoo, which is a big deal.

Because aardvarks are very private and usually only come out at night, not much is known about some parts of their daily lives. You can learn more about animals that are in danger of going extinct, like aardvarks, by taking care of them in zoos and watching how they live, act, and have bodies.

A baby learns to love its mother in such a short time.

The programme that this young calf will join is only available at a few zoos around the world.

Great, and I hope it’s not the last! We need to do everything we can to SAVE OUR PLANET because it is in bad shape.