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The little critter entered the world at 1-inch long and 11 grams, the same weight as two nickels plus a paperclip.
The first successful birth of a lesser Madagascar tenrec at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach took place on June 29, and over a month later, the baby continues to thrive.
The baby tenrec has not been given a name in part because its caretakers have yet to determine its sex. Unique for mammals, tenrecs do not have external genitalia but instead, similar to a bird or reptile, possess a cloaca.
“There is just a singular hole that everything comes in, comes out of,” explained Crystal Equels, the assistant curator of animal ambassadors at the Virginia Aquarium.
The baby’s mother, a 9-year-old tenrec named Elise, was born at the Virginia Zoo but has been living at the aquarium since 2018. An aquarium resident since 2023, the father, a 6-year-old tenrec named Squash, is a transplant to Virginia by way of Texas and the Abilene Zoo.
Gestation for tenrecs is around two months, and Elise was closely monitored during her pregnancy. She received ultrasounds and radiographs. Staff checked on her throughout the day, and cameras kept watch over her during the night.
Hers was a litter of four.

“The other three,” Equels said, “didn’t make it.”
The living child got extra special attention and for weeks was raised by humans who handfed the animal formula every two to three hours — at first through a tube and then a syringe — until the tiny tenrec eventually graduated to eating solids: a species-specific newborn mush, Equels said.
“It was a long process.”
The baby has since quadrupled in size, weighing in this week at 45 grams, and is expected to be a part of the Animal Ambassadors Program’s interactive education for as long as it lives at the aquarium. The tenrec might move to a different institution once it grows up.
The aquarium is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and participates in the Species Survival Plan to help ensure the survival of select species living in captivity. Although tenrecs are not an endangered species, Equels said, they do face dangers.
“They’re only endemic to Madagascar,” she said. “And if things continue in the direction that they’re going, with habitat destruction and things like that, they could potentially go endangered.”
Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8139, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com
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