After a 16-month pregnancy, it took mom Asha just 20 minutes to deliver the baby in her pen.
A British zoo has welcomed a new, rare rhino — and its momentous birth was captured on camera.
Mom Asha delivered the one-horned rhino calf, which does not yet have a name, around 6 p.m. on May 3.
After a 16-month pregnancy, it took Asha just 20 minutes to deliver the baby in her pen.
Video shows the 132-pound youngster falling from its mom before eventually taking its first wobbly steps and going for its first feed.
The rhino — only the second of its kind to be born at the Chester Zoo — could grow to weigh as much as 2.4 tons (4,800 pounds).
"Asha is a superb mum and delivered her little bundle of joy in very relaxed fashion – almost lying down completely to give birth," the zoo's curator of mammals, Tim Rowlands, said in a statement.
One-horned rhinos are susceptible to extinction in the wild so the birth marks a huge boost to the endangered species breeding program, the zoo said.
“Greater one-horned rhinos are a vulnerable species and every new calf is ever so special," Rowlands added. "This is a momentous new arrival."
The rhinos, which are native to India and Nepal, are threatened in the wild by the illegal poaching of their horns and habitat loss, he said. There are about 3,500 left in the wild today.
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