Florida: Lowry Park Zoo welcomes two 'rare' baby clouded leopards

Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo released a video yesterday (9 March) showing a set of new-born clouded leopard cubs that had recently joined the zoo. The video and photographs show the boy and girl being fed from a bottle by the zoo staff and wrapped up in blankets. The two tiny creatures were born on 29 February 2016.

The zoo said in a statement that the two babies were the first 'multiples' birth they had had from the parents. The leopards produced their first cub in 2015, a boy called Mowgli, named after the main character in Rudyard Kipling's novel The Jungle Book.

The clouded leopard was classified as a vulnerable species in 2008 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The body states that the current snow leopard population is estimated at less than 10,000 "mature individuals" worldwide.