Fiona the hippo has a new sibling, and ‘this calf looks huge to us,’ Cincinnati Zoo says

An only child for more than five years, Fiona the hippo now has a sibling at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Zoo officials announced on Thursday, Aug. 4, that 23-year-old Bibi gave birth to a “healthy, full-term hippo” at 10 p.m. on Aug. 3. The new calf is the sibling of Fiona, the beloved hippo born in 2017.

The name and gender of the calf have not been revealed, but zoo officials made it known that “baby hippos are adorable.”

“This calf looks huge to us because Fiona, Bibi’s first baby, only weighed 29 pounds when she was born six weeks premature and wasn’t able to stand on her own,” Christina Gorsuch, Cincinnati Zoo’s director of animal care, said in a news release. “This new calf weighs at least twice as much as Fiona did and is already walking.”

Bibi and her calf will spend the next two weeks bonding behind the scenes. The zoo said “all seems to be going well” for Bibi and her baby.

Fiona became an online sensation following her journey to health after her premature birth in 2017. It’s unclear if she has met her new sibling.

The calf’s father is Tucker, who arrived at the Cincinnati Zoo in 2021 and became “enamored” right away with Bibi. Fiona and Tucker have also gotten to know one another, zoo officials said.

“(Fiona and Tucker) are happy to hang out with each other and stay out of Bibi’s way while she bonds with the new calf,” the zoo said. “Keepers have been separating them from Bibi periodically over the past weeks to get them used to being a duo. They’re so comfortable with each other now that 2000-pound Fiona has been seen napping on 4500-pound Tucker.”

In April, the Cincinnati Zoo announced Bibi was pregnant — which came as a surprise, as the hippo was on birth control.

“We weren’t planning to welcome a baby this soon, but nature found a way and ignored our calendar,” Gorsuch said in April. “Most forms of contraception, in hippos or humans, is not 100% reliable. The dose that was previously effective for Bibi did not prevent pregnancy this time.”

This story was originally published August 4, 2022 at 8:31 AM with the headline "Fiona the hippo has a new sibling, and ‘this calf looks huge to us,’ Cincinnati Zoo says."