Zoo welcomes adorable endangered pygmy hippo in time for Christmas

Metro Richmond Zoo has announced the birth of a baby pygmy hippo, who arrived on 9 December after a seven-month gestation.

It is the third calf of Iris and Corwin, the young hippo’s mother and father.

The zoo recorded a healthy weight of 15 pounds, just two and a half per cent of a full-grown pygmy hippo’s 600-pound body weight.

The birth is important for the conservation of the species. Fewer than 2,500 pygmy hippos remain in the wild, according to estimates from The International Union for Conservation of Nature.