Singapore Zoo has welcomed a lion cub named Simba into the animal kingdom after a fake insemination officials said Tuesday was the first for the city state.
Lions are rarely bred through artificial insemination, with the procedure first successfully performed in 2018 – resulting in two pups in South Africa.
Lion numbers in the country have fallen by more than 40 percent over the past two decades, with about 23,000 to 39,000 mature animals left, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
He names lions as vulnerable.
A new Singapore puppy, named after the main character in Disney’s “The Lion King,” was born with semen from an elderly African lion.
Mufasa’s father, who also takes his name from the animated film, was in poor health and did not survive the procedure, the zoo said.
Simba, who was born in October, is cared for by his mother Kayla and ophthalmologists, and is “healthy and inquisitive”, officials said.
Video showed Simba being bottle fed and playing with a ball.