4 Meerkat Pups Born At San Diego Zoo

SAN DIEGO, CA — Four meerkat pups were recently born at the San Diego Zoo, zoo officials announced Tuesday.

Shaka, the matriarch of the slender-tailed meerkats at the San Diego Zoo, gave birth on Aug. 20 to the first litter at the zoo in six years.

"We won't know their sex for another few weeks since they are still quite young," Amanda Martinez, a spokesperson with San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, told Patch.

The pups spend their days nursing or eating, practicing digging, playing and relaxing in the underground burrows, according to San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, a nonprofit conservation organization that operates the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park.

"The mother is doing well and has a healthy appetite since she is nursing four kids," zoo officials said in a news release. "She has great maternal instincts, checking the underground tunnels to ensure they're safe and enlisting other members of the mob — large group of meerkats — to take turns babysitting the pups and teaching them how to be meerkats."

Visitors can see Shaka, the new pups and the rest of the meerkat mob in their habitat at the San Diego Zoo's Conrad Prebys Africa Rocks.