The baby gibbon is a female, keepers have named it Jari

Dec 14, 2013 18:56 GMT  ·  By

Keepers at Jackson Zoo in Mississippi, US have recently announced that the facility is now home to a baby white-handed gibbon.

The tiny creature was born little over three weeks ago, i.e. on November 22, to mother Mia and father Cookie-Man.

Its caretakers say that, at birth, it weighed about 1.3 pounds (0.6 pounds). However, it is now slowly beginning to get a tad plumper.

Zoo Borns tells us that the baby white-handed gibbon is a female, and that keepers have decided to name it Jari, i.e. an Indonesian word for “fingers.”

Because Mia and Cookie-Man have a history of not properly taking care of their offspring, Jari is being hand-raised by staff at the Zoo. The baby gibbon requires round-the-clock attention, and keepers take turns feeding it once every 2-3 hours.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers white-handed gibbons an endangered species. Hunting and habitat loss in their native Indonesia and Malaysia are the main threats to these animals' long-term survival.