CINCINNATI – Fiona’s new sibling is a brother.
The baby hippo born August 3 at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is a male, zoo officials announced Monday.
The new addition has not been named yet and the zoo is encouraging the public to send in suggestions. Zoo staff will review submissions and announce the name later this week.
Fiona became a global celebrity when she was born prematurely in 2017.
“This new calf weighs at least twice as much as Fiona did and is already walking,” said Christina Gorsuch, Cincinnati Zoo’s director of animal care in a news release.
Staff at the zoo discovered the calf’s mother, 23-year-old Bibi, was pregnant around April Fool’s Day. It came as a surprise because Bibi was on birth control.
Bibi’s first baby, Fiona, only weighed 29 pounds when she was born six weeks premature and wasn’t able to stand on her own. Fiona now weighs 2,000 pounds, the zoo said.
The zoo saw an increase in visitors and social media views after Fiona’s birth. Some animal rights groups criticized it for marketing a captive animal.