Cincinnati Zoo announces new baby wallaby after surprise pregnancy

The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden announced this week that the zoo welcomed a surprise addition: a new Bennett’s Wallaby joey.

However, the surprise was that the mother, named Ava, hasn’t bred since another joey named Pocket came out of Ava’s pouch last year, the same year Ava arrived in the city.

In fact, zoo experts speaking to our news partner WCPO-TV said that none of the zoo’s male wallabies can mate at all.

In posts to social media, the zoo explained that in addition to carrying Pocket in her pouch when she arrived in Cincinnati, Ava was carrying a fertilized embryo. Wallabies and some other mammals can put their pregnancies on pause until it is a good time to give birth, a process called embryonic diapause.

So, once Pocket left Ava’s pouch and was more independent, the embryo continued to develop and made its way to the pouch.

Experts told WCPO that this process means that some wallabies can be perpetually pregnant.

Zoo volunteers said that they noticed Ava’s pouch moving shortly before Christmas last year, WCPO reported.

The zoo said on social media that the baby wallaby has just opened its eyes, and will start to grow hair soon, before eventually hopping out of the pouch, too.

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