A NEW arrival has made history at the Cotswold Wildlife Park.

The two-month-old red-bellied lemur is the first baby in the park’s 60-year history to have been born in quarantine.

Chris Kibbey, section head for primates at the park, said: “It shows they were settled in quarantine and not too bothered by it.”

Dad Otys and mum Maren arrived at the wildlife park from Paris Zoo six months ago.

All animals must go through a period of quarantine before joining the main enclosures to check they are not carrying any diseases.

The birth was cause for double celebration at the enclosure as red-bellied lemurs are classed as vulnerable, with population numbers decreasing by more than 30 per cent in the past 24 years.

The baby lemur is just one of more than 60 births from 24 different species at the park in the past few months.

A litter of 10 striped skunks – known as kits – were born in May. Other births at the park include 14 new meerkat babies in the past three months, three baby peccaries, and four Turkish spiny mice, which are classified as critically endangered.

A scimitar-horned oryx, which is thought to be extinct in the wild, gave birth to a baby, and there were chicks for a stork and a laughing kookaburra.