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Central Park Zoo Welcomes Mongoose Pups

By DNAinfo Staff on October 28, 2010 1:20pm  | Updated on October 29, 2010 8:09am

By Jennifer Glickel

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

CENTRAL PARK — The Central Park Zoo has eight adorable new additions to its mongoose families, as two litters of four pups each were born at the end of last month.

The four Banded and four Dwarf mongoose pups are the first of their kind to be born at the Wildlife Conservation Society's Central Park Zoo and are being exhibited together in the zoo's Tropic Zone.

“The exhibits give people a chance to compare the Dwarf and Banded mongoose species next to each other, and see how behaviors of animals from the same family can be very distinct," Jeff Sailer, WCS’s Director of City Zoos, said in a statement.

The babies will grow up to look like mom and dad: the Banded mongooses have multiple bold, black stripes across their backs and the two adult Dwarf mongooses have full coats of brown fur.

Both species of pups are on view alongside each other so visitors to the zoo can observe how the animals interact and how the adult mongooses come together to help raise the pups collectively.

The Dwarf and Banded mongooses are native to Africa.