Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium announced the birth of a female muskox calf, sharing video of the baby’s physical examination on Friday, September 8.
The calf was born on Thursday to muskoxen parents Charlotte and Hudson, the zoo said.
Footage shows the zoo’s veterinary team performing a health exam of mother and calf on Friday morning.
“The day-old calf appears to be healthy, and in typical muskox fashion is beginning to wander around the zoo’s grassy Arctic Tundra habitat, sticking closely to mom,” the zoo wrote in a press release.
The calf weighs 20 pounds – “a long way from Hudson’s 757 pounds and Charlotte’s 671 pounds,” the zoo said. Until the calf grows stronger, she and her mother will stay in a smaller side yard of the Arctic Tundra habitat at the zoo’s location in Tacoma.
Muskoxen, an ancient species, are native to prairies and roaming tundra of Greenland, Alaska, and Northern Canada. Calves are born with the ability to walk and keep up with the herd “almost immediately,” Point Defiance Zoo said.
Credit: Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium via Storyful