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    "headline": "Moo Deng becomes an aunt as Thailand’s Khao Kheow Open Zoo welcomes a pygmy hippo calf born November 4",
    "description": "The calf's father is Moo Toon, older brother of the viral hippo. Zoo vets found mother Moo Manao and the unnamed newborn healthy, and no public viewing date has been set.",
    "datePublished": "2026-11-09T05:55:00+00:00",
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    "articleSection": "Pets & Animals",
    "keywords": "Khao Kheow Open Zoo, Moo Deng, pygmy hippo, Thailand, zoo births",
    "articleBody": "Moo Deng, the pygmy hippo who turned a Thai zoo into a meme factory, is an aunt. Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi province says a calf was born there on November 4 to a female named Moo Manao and a male named Moo Toon, and Moo Toon is Moo Deng’s older brother. The zoo announced the birth on Thursday, November 5. Keepers then put the first photos on Facebook: the newborn dozing in a patch of sunlight, and the newborn mouthing its mother’s cheek. The pictures went viral quickly, and the keepers’ page ran them beside baby photos of Moo Deng so fans could compare. How mother and calf are doing Zoo vets have examined both animals and found them healthy, according to the zoo director’s report. The calf was already moving around and exploring its enclosure. Moo Manao has stayed close to it and is keeping staff at a distance, and keepers describe her as still worn out from the birth. Details beyond that are thin. Two days after the birth, on November 6, nobody had yet said whether the newborn is male or female, and it still had no name. Local reports put Moo Manao at 14 years old and Moo Toon at seven. The family’s names all come off a menu. Moo Deng translates as “bouncy pork,” Moo Toon as “stewed pork” and Moo Manao as “lime pork.” An aunt at 847 days old Moo Deng was born at the same zoo on July 10, 2024. Count forward to November 4, 2026, and she became an aunt at two years, three months and 25 days old. In days that is 847: 730 for her first two years, plus 117 between her second birthday and the calf’s arrival. Those 847 days were busy. More than 20,000 people voted in the poll that picked her name. Photos of her took off online in September 2024, when she was two months old, and daily visitor numbers at the zoo doubled early that month. Some visitors splashed water on her or threw objects to wake her, so the zoo installed security cameras around her enclosure. It also capped each visit at five minutes to cope with the crowds. On her first birthday, July 10, 2025, more than 12,000 fans came through the gates. This time the zoo is not rushing. A public debut is promised soon, with no date attached, while staff keep watching how mother and newborn settle. Why one calf counts The pygmy hippopotamus is a separate species from the much larger common hippo. It is nocturnal, reclusive and native to the forests and swamps of West Africa. Liberia holds most of them; Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast have smaller groups. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists it as endangered, and its 2015 assessment estimated that fewer than 2,500 remain in the wild. Habitat loss from logging and farm conversion is the main threat, with poaching and bushmeat hunting on top. A zoo birth in Thailand does not change those numbers in Liberia. Pygmy hippos breed well in captivity, and most research on the species comes from zoo animals because wild ones are so hard to find and follow. Fame has not turned into field money either: in February 2025, Elie Bogui, coordinator of the Taï Hippo Project in Ivory Coast, reported that the Moo Deng craze had made no significant difference to funding for pygmy hippo conservation. What happens next Three things are still open: the calf’s sex, its name and its public debut. Moo Deng’s name came from a public vote, but the zoo has not confirmed a poll for this calf. The zoo’s Facebook page is the place to watch for both. Khao Kheow is in Si Racha district, roughly a two-hour drive from Bangkok depending on traffic. Anyone planning the trip for the newborn should wait for the zoo to post a viewing date. As of November 6, there was none. Further reading Wikipedia: Moo Deng Wikipedia: Pygmy hippopotamus Image: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.",
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