“I thought it might be a bit presumptuous to call our new baby Elizabeth, so I have christened her Queenie instead. I think it is a perfect name for a young lady rhino,” said Reggie Heyworth, managing director of Cotswold Wildlife Park who named a new animal after Queen Elizabeth. The calf was named in honor of the 70th year of the Queen’s service on the throne.
Videos of the newborn white rhino were shared by the Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens in Burford, Oxfordshire. She was seen bounding around in the park’s rhino paddock and solar-powered rhino house after being in an enclosure since her birth.
Queenie was the fifth female baby rhino to be born in a row and the latest animal to be named after a royal family member. In fact, a bactrian camel at the park was named Louis after the Queen’s great-grandson because he was born on the same day.
White rhinos were on the verge of extinction in the early 1900s, with only around 20 to 50 remaining in their African homeland. But following years of protection, they are now the most common of the five rhino species, the park said.
Queenie is the newest addition to the park’s white rhino family, the largest species of rhino and native to Southern Africa, and she is believed to be the first white rhino born in a UK zoo this year.
Image credit: Rory Carnegie