The male baby gibbon, named Dao, was born in late September, but the Wrocław zoo only confirmed the news on Thursday, PAP reported.
His parents are the only breeding pair of northern white-cheeked gibbons (Nomascus leucogenys) in Poland.
Radosław Ratajszczak, director of the Wrocław zoo, told PAP his facility had one of the best runs for gibbons in Europe.
“Gibbons can behave naturally here and they have peace. They repay us with beautiful singing and with offspring,” he said.
He added that the northern white-cheeked variety was not easy to breed, requiring appropriate accommodation and genetic variety.
“With monkeys, hooking a pair together for breeding is even harder than with other animal species because, apart from many other considerations, they have to be attracted to each other,” Ratajszczak told PAP.
“We were lucky because Carusa and Xian hit it off immediately and Dao was born within a year,” he added.
The northern white-cheeked gibbons are a critically endangered species, with just 160 found in nature, in Vietnam, Laos and probably China. Additionally, more than 200 northern white-cheeked gibbons live in zoos around the world, the Polish news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP