Giraffe was hiding a secret at Maryland Zoo. Then she delivered a big surprise
.jpg "Kipepeo and her newborn calf are bonding at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.")
A reticulated giraffe surprised her keepers when she gave birth in March, just four months after arriving at the zoo.
Kipepeo, a 4-year-old giraffe at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, started acting a little differently on March 26, according to a zoo news release. Zoo spokesperson Mike Evitts told McClatchy News in a phone interview Kipepeo seemed “unsettled” and showed less interest in food. Zookeepers started monitoring her, and she went into labor the following morning, giving birth to a female calf.
“Gestation for reticulated giraffe is around 450 days, so Kipi was pregnant when she arrived in Baltimore,” Erin Cantwell Grimm, mammal curator at the Maryland Zoo, said. “We’re keeping a close eye on the calf to make sure she hits her growth milestones and, so far, we like what we’re seeing.”
Maryland Zoo did not name the institution Kipepeo came from in the news release announcing her arrival in January. Evitts said it was a facility in Texas accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums that asked to remain unnamed. There were no records of her breeding.
Evitts said Kipepeo was managed as part of a giraffe herd at that facility, and it’s likely she became pregnant there.
According to the Philadelphia Zoo, female reticulated giraffes reach sexual maturity at 3 to 4 years old, but they typically don’t begin breeding until age 7 or so. That makes Kipepeo a young mother by giraffe standards.
“The new calf, which has yet to be named, is 58 kilograms (128 pounds) and approximately 6 feet tall,” the news release states. “She is nursing well and Kipi is being a great first-time mother.”
Kipepeo, whose name means “butterfly” in Swahili, got her name through a public naming contest held by the zoo in November.
