First Wombat at Zoo Praha
First Wombat at Zoo Praha
13.12.2021 / 06:27 | Aktualizováno: 13.12.2021 / 06:29
A male wombat named Cooper arrived at the Prague Zoo on Wednesday from Hanover Zoo. After the end of a monthly quarantine, visitors will be able to see the first representative of this extremely marvellous species of marsupial at the “Darwin crater”. Prague Zoo is the first Czech and eighth European facility to accommodate him.
"The wombat - one of Australia's symbols - is a truly special and at the same time appealing animal. We are therefore very pleased to be able to introduce this unique marsupial to the Czech public,” says Miroslav Bobek, Director of the Prague Zoo. "Cooper belongs to the Tasmanian subspecies of common wombat and a female wombat should be paired with him which originates from Tasmania."
The wombat is the closest relative of the koala, inhabiting Tasmania and the wetter regions of Australia. It is one of the only marsupials that remain active even in colder periods with snow falling. The food it eats consists mainly of various types of grasses and sedges which are mostly consumed at night. Much of a wombat’s life is spent digging underground systems of burrows and corridors. For this reason, females have their pouch turned backwards so that the young wombats are not cover with dirt.
Cooper was born last July at the Erlebnis-Zoo Hannover and is the first joey born here since 1993 and the first descendant of the local breeding pair - a three-year-old female Maya and a five-year-old male Kelly.
