Weird and wonderful: Gorgeous baby aardvark born at Florida zoo

Busch Gardens

With his huge ears and nose and transparent skin, it looks like a face only a mother could love.

But, funnily enough, we've fallen head over heels for this newborn baby aardvark, which is the latest addition to the Busch Gardens theme park in Tampa Bay, Florida.

The little baby is the second to parents Izzy and Friz, and joins a brother called Zawadi, who will celebrate his first birthday on 10 April.

Busch Gardens

This newborn weighed in at 4.8lbs and is expected to grow to 120lbs in his first year.

The arrival is particularly special as aardvark zoo births are not common, with less than 40 living in zoos across North America.

In the wild, aardvarks live in sub-Saharan Africa, where savannahs, grassland, and woodlands offer sufficient amounts of their favourite food: ants and termites. The word aardvark means "digging footed" and, as such, the animals use their enormous claws and strong legs to dig for food. They can get through two feet of land in 15 seconds.

Busch Gardens

When they find food, they use their long (up to 12 inches) sticky tongues to eat up to as many as 50,000 insects in one night, while using their large ears to listen out for predators like lions, hyenas and pythons.

They are nocturnal and solitary creatures, often living in burrows on their own, with only babies and mothers sharing tunnels until the baby is about a year old.

Busch Gardens

In captivity, the animals can live up to around 24 years old, and this little one can be found at Jambo Junction in the Nairobi section of the Busch Gardens Tampa Bay theme park.

See more gorgeous baby zoo animals here:

%VIRTUAL-Gallery-150547%

Sign up to our weekly newsletterFollow us on TwitterBecome a fan on Facebook