Photo of Golden Lion Tamarin, courtesy of the National Zoo, Jessie Cohen, NZP photographer

Last week, panda lovers of D.C. shed many tears over the news that Mei Xiang will not be giving us a new baby panda this year, despite earlier signs indicating otherwise. This week, the Zoo would like you to remember that it does, in fact, have many other newborns at which to gawk.

An email sent around by FONZ last night touts the Zoo’s twin baby golden lion tamarins, who were born at the Small Mammal House on July 17. The National Zoo has been working collaboratively with other zoos and researchers in Brazil on the captive breeding and habitat re-introduction of golden lion tamarins since 1992, and has been breeding the tamarins since the 1970s. With only 1500 left in the wild, these efforts are key to the species’ survival. Over the past few decades, over 178 golden lion tamarins have been born at the National Zoo, and in the 1970s, only 200 were left in the wild. You can view the animals in their free-ranging area, or scroll down on this page to view a webcam.

This summer, the Zoo’s Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal also welcomed two Przewalski’s horses into the world. Przewalski’s horses are native to Western Europe and Asia, and are the world’s last remaining wild horses. They were classified as “extinct in the wild” by the World Conservation Union in 1970, and now approximately 1500 live in zoos internationally, all of which are descendants of only 14 horses captured in the early part of the twentieth century. The National Zoo is part of the Przewalski’s Horse Species Survival Plan, which manages the population to ensure health and genetic diversity. You can check in on the two new horses by reading their diary.

Other summertime births at the zoo include a kori bustard chick, two San Clemente goats, a prehensile-tailed porcupine, a greater Madagascar tenrec, a white-naped crane chick, and a tammar wallaby joey.