Adorable baby meerkats melting hearts at Tasmanian zoo
Gorgeous baby meerkats have been born at the Zoodoo Wildlife Park in Richmond, Tasmania.
The four pups were born to the zoo's resident meerkat colony with all nine adults taking part in caring for the youngsters.
The babies entered the world 13 days ago, and are the first African Kalahari native desert animals born in Tasmania, according to The Mercury.
Zoodoo owner Trevor Cuttriss told Rex Features: "They're a very tight knit family - they all care for them."
The meerkat, or suricate, is a small mammal belonging to the mongoose family.
In the wild, meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, in much of the Namib Desert in Namibia and southwestern Angola, and in South Africa.
A group of meerkats is called a "mob", "gang" or "clan". A meerkat clan often contains about 20 meerkats, but some super-families have 50 or more members.
In captivity, meerkats have an average life span of 12–14 years, and about half this in the wild.
These new arrivals will spend most of the next few weeks below ground before venturing out into the big wide world.
Cute, or what?
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