Weekly dose of cute

This week's cute is a newborn Sifaka (Propithecus coronatus) named Tahina from a French Zoo. She's a beautiful baby girl, whose name means "needs to be protected."

Baby Sifaka
Baby Sifaka
Baby Sifaka

In the wild, this little girl would be carried in her mother's mouth until she was strong enough to hold onto her fur by herself. Devoid of a mother, the little lemur was given a teddy to cling to. Like all lemur species, Sifakas are found only on Madagascar, and are on the verge of extinction. This little girl is one of only 17 in captivity, and her species natural habitat is shrinking every day. The IUCN Red List states the wild population may have decreased by 50% in the past 30 years, and is still decreasing. So this little girl is a beacon of hope for captive breeding programs aiming to boost population numbers - and she definitely needs our protection.

More like this

How's that for a frightening figure? 1/4 of all mammals on earth are on the IUCN's newest "Red List," animals threatened with extinction - that's 1,141 of them, at least, with 188 being 'critically endangered.' I say 'at least' because almost as many - 836 of them - are 'data deficient,' which…
tags: pygmy hippo, hippopotamus, Choeropsis liberiensis, endangered species A rare pygmy hippopotamus,Choeropsis liberiensis, was born in a zoo near Paris on 5 June 2007. Named Aldo, this pygmy hippo is approximately the size of a human baby. He is one of only a few dozen born in Europe, bred by…
I'm away right now, and haven't had time to prepare new stuff. So, here's something from the archives again: by which I mean, something written in 2006. It's still pretty interesting (in my humble opinion), but I would definitely do some things differently were I to re-write it today [gliding…
Petal, the female African elephant, photographed in September 2007.In September, 2007, my wife and I made one of our semi-annual trips to the Philadelphia Zoo, mostly to see the little Amur tiger cubs. While there I photographed this elephant, Petal, fiddling with a chain in the shade of her all-…