\n Dotty the dik-dik, one of the smallest species of antelope in the world, was born weighing just a few hundred grams and stands barely taller than a tin of baked beans.\n<\/p>\n
\n Chester Zoo said the calf is now beginning to explore her surroundings.\n<\/p>\n
\n Megan Carpenter, assistant team manager of small mammals at Chester Zoo, said: “Dik-diks are naturally very shy animals, so for the first couple of weeks Chrissy’s tiny fawn has been tucked away in a quiet, cosy den, with mum popping back to feed and check on her.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Now though, she’s beginning to find her feet and we’re seeing those lovely first steps as she heads out on her first little outdoor adventures.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Dotty is being raised by her mother, Chrissy, and a surrogate father named Dan, who arrived from a zoo in Cumbria in February.\n<\/p>\n
\n Her biological father died of old age shortly before she was born.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Carpenter said: “In a lovely addition to the story, we\u2019ve also welcomed a new male dik-dik, Dan, as part of the European conservation breeding programme.\n<\/p>\n
\n “He\u2019s already stepped in alongside mum Chrissy to help raise the newborn and it’s wonderful to see the three of them together.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Kirk’s dik-diks are often found in the scrublands and mountainous regions of Kenya, Tanzania, and Namibia in Africa.\n<\/p>\n
\n They are named after their high-pitched “dik-dik” alarm call, which they make when startled and dash for cover.\n<\/p>\n
\n They use their elongated, flexible noses to pluck leaves directly from branches \u2013 a unique feature found only in dik-diks \u2013 and mark their territory using scent glands beneath their eyes and between their toes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dotty the dik-dik, one of the smallest species of antelope in the world, was born weighing just a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-510846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}