Over the weekend, Washington, D.C. received news from the kingdom in the Small Mammal House at the National Zoo: Her majesty the naked mole-rat queen has given birth to a litter of eight new pups, solidifying her place as the colony’s one true ruler.

Zoo staff found a few new pups in the chambers on Saturday, and the queen continued giving birth throughout the day and night, says zoo spokesperson Devin Murphy (the zoo’s initial tweet said the queen had seven pups, but turns out Her Majesty had another one left to go). She gave birth to nine pups in all, but one of them was either stillborn or died shortly after birth, Murphy says.

When we last heard from the colony in January, the queen was still recovering from the last go-round—back in December, after a long, tense battle for political supremacy, the queen gave birth to her first litter of four pups. Those pups are now thriving members of the colony, Murphy says. They’ve been fully weaned for weeks, and now dine exclusively on a diet of tubers, just like their grown-up compatriots. They’ve even started taking on some adult mole-rat tasks of their own, Murphy says, moving food around the chambers and tending to the queen.

Naked mole-rats are one of only two eusocial mammalian species, which means only one female reproduces, much like in a colony of bees or ants. This female is generally larger than all the rest, and fights her way to the top via physical aggression and intimidation. While the colony at the National Zoo was choosing its queen, four naked mole-rats lost their lives battling for the spot.

Then, in December, the queen revealed herself, giving birth to her first four babies. Since then, Murphy says, things have been relatively quiet—it doesn’t appear that any other mole-rats are vying for rulership. In February, an adult female mole-rat did die in a fight with another “particularly aggressive female,” Murphy says, but zoo staff don’t think this death had anything to do with politics.

“We think it might have just been a mole-rat fight,” Murphy says.

The queen has been quite busy nursing her new pups since she gave birth on Saturday, Murphy says. The colony has been helpful in schlepping the pups all over the chambers to make sure they’re all staying near the queen (hormones in the queen’s poop compel them to take care of her young). In ten days to two weeks, the queen will likely be pregnant yet again, Murphy says, and it’s likely her next litter will be even larger: Each time a mole-rat queen gets pregnant, her spinal column stretches a little bit to make room for more in there next time.

Naked mole-rat gestation periods run between 70 and 90 days (it was 82 days this time), so we can expect yet another litter in that amount of time. Until then, enjoy a view of the babies via the naked mole-rat cam.