Alyssa Johnson

A new baby animal is poking around the zoo as the Lincoln Children’s Zoo welcomed a prehensile-tailed baby porcupine this month.

The porcupette was born on Aug. 1 to 10-year-old mom, Nora, and 15-year-old dad, Renzo. In order to determine the gender, a quill had to be sent to a lab for DNA testing to determine its gender.

The results will be announced at a later time.

This is the first time a prehensile-tailed porcupine has been born at the Lincoln Children’s Zoo.

Both mom and baby are doing well and are remaining behind-the-scenes. The porcupette weighed just one one pound at 2 days old and as of Monday, weighed 2.3 pounds.

Porcupettes are born with short quills that are covered by reddish-orange hair. As they continue to grow, their quills are revealed as they lose t

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