{"id":263108,"date":"2026-08-11T07:10:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T07:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/263108\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T07:10:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T07:10:57","slug":"why-the-pittsburgh-zoos-new-lion-cub-was-named-after-a-potato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/263108\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Pittsburgh Zoo&#8217;s new lion cub was named after a potato"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Four months after she was born, the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium&#8217;s lion cub made her public debut with her new name on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The cub was named Kiazi, which means potato in Swahili.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When she was first born and she was just little and just laying there, doing nothing but sleeping and nursing, she looked like a baked potato,&#8221; said lion handler Karen Vacco.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And the fact that her father is a first-time dad, he came from Idaho. Idaho potato,&#8221; Vacco added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/snapshot-2026-08-10t182935-885.jpg#.jpeg\" alt=\"snapshot-2026-08-10t182935-885.jpg \" height=\"348\" width=\"620\" class=\" lazyload\"  loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  The Pittsburgh Zoo named its new lion cub Kiazi, which means potato in Swahili.<\/p>\n<p>                (Photo: KDKA)<\/p>\n<p>The zoo had more than 1,100 names to choose from, with the contest to name the cub raising more than $5,700. She was on display Monday, much to the delight of visitors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I like it because it plays with its mamma,&#8221; a young visitor said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kiazi was born on April 5 to first-time parents Hondo and Scarlett. African lions are considered vulnerable, and their numbers have declined more than 50% over the last 25 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Officials say Kiazi is as healthy as can be and will spend a few more years at the zoo before she heads out to start her own pride at another zoo. But for now, Vacco says, &#8220;She&#8217;s our baby, and we&#8217;re going to keep her.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four months after she was born, the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium&#8217;s lion cub made her public debut with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74,2063],"class_list":["post-263108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-zoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}