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Berlin's latest zoo celebrity, a fluffy polar bear cub, made her first appearance to the public since being born in December.
Nuzzling her mother Tonja, taking a dip in a pool in her enclosure and sniffing the fresh air, the still unnamed three and a half month old seemed oblivious to the phalanx of cameras gathered for her coming-out at the Tierpark zoo in the east of the capital.
Under grey skies, the cub splashed in the water, lolled on the grey stones outside the breeding burrow where she has lived since her birth on December 1 and gnawed on tree bark as she explored her new surroundings.
The mortality of polar bears tends to be very high in the first weeks. Tonja lost three of her cubs in less than two years. To the great relief of her keepers, the new female has made it through the crucial first three months when a captive cub's chances of survival hang in the balance.
"We're very happy with her development," the zoo's polar bear vet Florian Sicks said in a statement.
