THE BABY MANTLED GUEREZA IS A FEMALE

The three-week-old female is the twelfth baby of the experienced nineteen-year-old female Lucie. Photo Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

“It is relatively easy to determine this species’ sex with the naked eye. However, we had to wait for the opportunity, because the baby held tightly to its mother for the first few days. It was only when its older sister, Magali, took it in her arms and started to tickle it on its belly, and in so doing she turned it towards the keeper, that we realized it was a female,” explained primate curator Jan Mengr.

The Prague group of mantled guerezas now numbers five. Besides the female Lucie and the new addition, there are also the baby’s older siblings – Magali, a female who is almost three years old, and two males, two year old Koulička and Kito, who is almost two years old. Visitors can best observe the guerezas around 10am and 2pm, when they are fed with a variety of vegetables, leafy nibbles and biscuits for leaf-eating animals.

“The baby mainly drinks breast milk, but she is also slowly starting to taste solid food. She often takes the hand of her mother, Lucie, and licks the vegetables or leaves it holds. She is also taking an active interest in her surroundings, and now and then she will even let go of her mother, but she still keeps mum close by. Her sister Magali is borrowing her more and more often as she likes to take care of her,” said Lucie Holatová, the guereza keeper, explaining the first weeks of the infant’s life.

Pretty soon the juvenile should start to turn grey, but for now visitors can still easily recognize her by her pink face and white fur. The juveniles get the black-and-white colouring, that is characteristic of adults, at three months of age, and by one year they should have a fully developed coat of longer hairs on their shoulders and back.