Meet L.A. Zoo's New Baby Mandrill Monkeys: Adorable!

LOS ANGELES – A pair of mandrill baby monkeys recently born at the Los Angeles Zoo will make their public debut today.

A female baby was born Aug. 3 to 5-year-old mother, Juliette, and a male baby was born Aug. 17 to 4-year-old mother, Clementine.

The first-time mothers were brought to the zoo from Parc Zoologique de La Palmyre in Les Mathes in southwestern France in April 2016 to be paired with the first-time father, 6-year-old Jabari, as part of a species survival program.

"This is a very new breeding group of mandrills that has only been together for about a year, so we're incredibly happy with how well things are going so far," said L'Oreal Dunn, an animal keeper at the zoo. "This species comes from a small area in Africa that isn't accessible to most people, so it's very special that our guests can now observe babies here for the first time in over 40 years."

Mandrills, which resemble baboons, come mostly from southern Cameroon and the Congo, but there could concentrations in areas not yet identified. They are regarded as vulnerable. Populations are under threat and declining due to habitat loss caused by the agricultural spread and human settlement, and they often are hunted as bushmeat, as many Africans consider them to be a delicacy, zoo officials said.

"The half siblings can be seen clinging tightly to their mothers, playing together, and testing their boundaries," according to the zoo staff. "They are learning to navigate their new habitat, a rainforest-like environment that supplies the group with plenty of trees, logs, and plant life to explore during the day and aerial lofts and ledges where they sleep at night."

Zoo visitors can now view the two babies along with their mothers, Clementine and Juliette, their father, Jabari, and elder female Vroni, in their habitat daily, weather permitting. The Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens is located at 5333 Zoo Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90027.

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--City News Service contributed to this report/Images by Jamie Pham and Tad Motoyama via LA Zoo