Meet Newquay Zoo's adorable slender loris baby as it takes 'exciting' step

An adorable new addition at Newquay Zoo has been spotted away from its mother for the first time.

The baby gray slender loris was born on 22 September to parents Sheldon and Ribke and is yet to be named. 

Sharing a new picture of the animal, zoo keeper Laura Meredith said: “This is the first time we’ve seen the baby on its own, which is really exciting!

"They spend the first few weeks on their mother’s backs until they are old enough to be ‘parked’ on a tree while the mother goes off to feed.”

What do we know about slender lorises?

The Slender loris is a small nocturnal social animal which is a Near Threatened species.

They live in the forests, plantations and jungles of Sri Lanka and eastern and southern India and spend most of their time living in trees, travelling along branches on all fours and sleeping by tangling their limbs together to form a ‘sleeping ball’. 

The animals appear to prefer living in degraded areas, rather than primary forests. This means they often live near human settlements and plantations - causing them to be vulnerable to habitat loss.