Baby Edgar.
Becky Malinsky / Smithsonian's National Zoo
Like any new mom, Becky Malinsky has dozens and dozens of baby photos on her phone. Unlike most new moms, the baby in question is a monkey.
“I always joke, if someone finds my phone, if I lose it, they’re like, ‘What the heck is this?!'” Malinsky says, laughing.
Malinksy is the primate curator at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. The baby, Edgar, is an Allen’s swamp monkey, a species native to the forested wetlands of central Africa.
For the past month-plus, Malinksy and other zookeepers have been in the unexpected position of having to care for the baby monkey 24/7. They feed him formula in a tiny bottle, and he sleeps in a Pack ‘N Play surrounded by stuffed animals (his favorite is the stuffed ghost).
“Initially, it was holding him all the time, just like a human infant,” Malinksy says.
This was definitely not the plan when zookeepers discovered Edgar’s mom, Zawadi, was pregnant in mid-July. Zawadi was gaining weight; to confirm the pregnancy, they trained her to pause in front of an x-ray plate.
On the morning of August 21st, zoo staff were thrilled to find the baby had been born, and was alive and well. He weighed just 400 grams — the equivalent of 2.5 cups of all-purpose flour. He had a tiny, wrinkly, old-man face with gigantic ears, surrounded by a shock of white fur. Baby Allen’s swamp monkeys have whitish fur to blend in with the light-colored fur on the bellies of adult monkeys — as a baby clings to its mom’s...
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