Dudley Zoo's newest addition is a boy!
It's a boy! The gender of a zoo's newest addition has been revealed.
Keepers at Dudley Zoo threw a 'gender reveal party' for the gelada baboon.
This saw two boxes packed with coloured plastic children's balls, hay and treats put in the gelada's indoor den.
It didn’t take long for the 13-year-old alpha male Elano and adult female, Tana, to tip out blue balls and reveal the news the new addition is a boy – his fourth son.
The youngster is the second baby for 11-year-old Addis, who is also mum to three-year-old Billie.
He was born on December 21 and has been named Dendi by keepers, after Mount Dendi, the second highest volcano in Ethiopia – which is the native home of the species.
Dendi joins brothers Billie, Gimbi and Ambo – who spent hours afterwards playing with the ball pit balls – as well as adult females Jimma and Tana in their half-acre natural hillside enclosure on the lower zoo site.
Primate keeper Jade Reddall said: “We’re delighted that the latest addition to our Baboons on the Bank arrived just in time to be officially counted in this year’s census."
The zoo's geladas are part of a European Endangered Species Programme and the venue has been successfully breeding them since 2014.
Gestation for pregnant mothers is usually around six months and they will carry the baby on their stomach for the first few weeks, before transferring it to their back.
Babies will begin to gain more independence when they are around five months old.
The popular Baboons on the Bank attraction was opened by TV star and conservationist Bill Oddie back in 2014.
