In the very early hours of Christmas eve morning, Auckland Zoo had a special stripy delivery - a beautiful zebra foal!

7-year-old female zebra Layla, and foal are doing well, but it is early days so the team are monitoring them closely while they take this time to bond and the foal gets used to its whole new world of zebra, giraffe, humans and other creatures.

This is the 43rd zebra foal born at Auckland Zoo, the last zebra foal was born in 2010 – a Plains zebra – male Unyazi on 21 September 2010.

We’ll keep you updated to let you know how it is doing, if it’s a boy or a girl and when it’s regularly in the paddock. We couldn’t be happier with the latest addition to the zoo whanau and look forward to visitors being able to say hello.

Auckland Zoo now has five zebra (plain zebra species): as part of Australasian regional breeding programme. Female Itika (26 years old); Male Carlo (11 years old); Female sisters Layla (7) and Dalila (5) and now our new foal.