NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee zoo is celebrating the arrival of a baby Mexican spider monkey – the first to be born at the attraction.
According to WZTV and WKRN, the Nashville Zoo took to social media on Monday to announce that mother Molly, 21, welcomed her first baby April 9.
“This birth is especially important since Mexican spider monkeys are critically endangered in the wild,” the zoo captioned several photos of the infant. “The newborn will cling to mom for the first several months of its life and then start exploring on its own.”
OH HEY BABY! 🐒 👀 A Nashville Zoo FIRST: Molly, our 21-year-old female Mexican spider monkey, had her first offspring...
Posted by Nashville Zoo on Monday, April 18, 2022
The unnamed baby’s father, Sandy, is “obsessed” with the newborn, whose sex has not yet been determined, the post added.
“The rest of the troop is definitely enamored, as well,” wrote the zoo, which is now home to five Mexican spider monkeys, WZTV reported.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers Mexican spider monkeys endangered. Global Forest Watch suspects that the primates, which are native to Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, will experience “a population reduction of more than 50% ... over the course of 45 years,” according to the IUCN website.
©2022 Cox Media Group
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/K7WXWWKVNJBWBHM7UTX4W2QUBQ.png)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/IUSGSZMFTRE5ZJ65YWWHMMHNTM.png)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/AZSXA52P5FBBHG5OQHKXTWZJUU.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/BPX2VNFSKNBBROMVLSMEYRGDVU.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/EF3A2INM4NHF5MQVE6E5L5DW3U.jpg)