A female gibbon in a Japanese zoo gives birth to a surprising offspring.
Because the animal lives alone in its cage.
Zoo workers think they've finally figured out how it got pregnant.
Nagasaki - In February 2021, staff at the Kujukushima Zoo & Botanical Garden in Nagasaki, Japan, were amazed when Momo, a 12-year-old female white-handed gibbon gave birth.
Although she had no male partner.
For a long time it remained a mystery how the animal became pregnant without contact with other animals.
Female gibbon alone in cage - Zoo staff announce their theory of how the animal got pregnant
"It took us two years to figure it out," Jun Yamano, director of the zoo, told Vice.
Because neither he nor other members of the workforce came close to Mama Momo or Baby to take the appropriate samples.
Mama Momo protect her cub too well.
After staff finally succeeded, a DNA test revealed that the baby gibbon's father is a 34-year-old male gibbon named Itoh, who is being kept in a cage next to Momo.
The question that remains is how the two could mate.
The solution to the riddle is said to be a one centimeter small hole in the partition between the cages.
Although there is no surveillance footage to verify, keepers believe Momo and Itoh were able to mate through the hole in the steel plate.
"We think it's very likely that they copulated through a hole on one of the days Itoh was in the exhibition area," Yamano said.
Pregnant female gibbon - happy ending for Momo and Ito?
Since gibbons live monogamously and usually form bonds that last a lifetime, Momo, Itō and offspring should live in one enclosure.
"They have to get used to each other first.
But hopefully they live together as one family,” says Yamano.
There was also a happy ending recently for two primates stolen from a Dallas zoo.
