The cub, weighing 135 grams, was born by the female Run Hou Tang before 4 o’clock on Thursday. “Most of all, it resembles a spruce cone,” described the new addition to the Troy Zoo’s director.

There are eight species of crustaceans. Some of them live in Asia, others in Africa. The scales that protect their bodies are believed to have healing properties in traditional Chinese medicine. That’s why lemurs are among the most smuggled mammals, according to the Prague Zoo.

Keratin scales provide these nocturnal creatures with protection from predators. In case of danger, nutcrackers spin and hide the unprotected parts of the body, i.e. mainly the abdomen and head, inside the ball.

Nutcrackers always give birth to one young, which rides on the mother’s tail for a long time. At birth, the young’s scales are soft and bright. However, they will darken and harden within a few days. There are only two gardens in the world where these animals successfully reproduce, the Prague Zoo writes on its website.

Last April, the Prague Zoo acquired a pair of pods from the Taipei Zoo through a partnership agreement between Prague and the Taiwanese metropolis.

Breeding pods is quite demanding, mainly due to ensuring a sufficient amount of suitable food. In the wild, nutcrackers use strong claws to dig up anthills and termite mounds to get food. They then select the prey with their sticky tongue. In the zoo, the daily feed ration for one pod contains, among other things, 100 grams of bee larvae, mealworms, a mixture for insectivores, an apple, egg yolk, soil and other ingredients.