For anyone who gleefully sang that they wanted a hippopotamus for Christmas, only a hippopotamus will do, a Virginia zoo has heeded your call.
Five months after the Internet was gifted with Moo Deng, the delightfully bouncy, music video-dropping Thailand-based sensation, Metro Richmond Zoo announced on Christmas Eve that pygmy hippos Iris and Corwin welcomed their third baby girl Dec. 9 after a seven-month gestation.
The new arrival comes just over two years after the pair’s second calf was born.
“Most people don’t get a hippopotamus for Christmas at all,” the zoo announced in their press release, referencing Gayla Peevey‘s popular 1985 holiday hit, “so we feel lucky to have received two over the years.”
Much like another famed holiday arrival, the birth was considered fairly miraculous as it was the first time Iris labored in an indoor pool.
At 4:50 p.m., with several zookeepers and even “a few zoo guests” on hand, the unnamed calf made her arrival. “The baby’s natural instincts kicked in,” shared the zoo, “and she started moving around in the water immediately.”
