In early April the Belfast Zoo welcomed a Southern Pudu baby, the aptly named "Pequeño!" The smallest member of the deer family, the Southern Pudu measures only 17 inches (43 centimeters) in adulthood. That's one tiny deer! At birth the fawn was so small that it was the same weight as a pint of milk! Zoo manager, Mark Challis, is delighted with the newest arrival “Southern Pudus are facing a high risk of extinction in the wild so the birth of the fawn is extremely important. Southern Pudus originate from the dense lowland forests of South Chile and South-west Argentina and as Spanish is the native language we have named the fawn, ‘Pequeño’ which means small.”

Currently there are just 70 pudu kept in European zoo’s, the European breeding programme is managed by zoologists in Wuppertal Zoo. This recent addition brings the total number of Southern Pudus at Belfast Zoo to four! Visitors can easily spot Pequeño as fawns have white spots, which provide camouflage.