Chilean mountain goats, I love you!

Apparently, there are only 70 pudús living in European zoos - who knew? OK OK, I admit it, I didn't know what a pudú was either until this morning. But since then I have been reading up all about them... they are the world's smallest deer and they are teeny tiny! They can range in size from 32-44cm tall and up to 85cm long. That's pretty small.

The Southern pudú below was born in April at Belfast Zoo, and has been named 'Pequeño' which means 'small' in Spanish. Isn't he utterly gorgeous?!

image from Belfast Zoo

Southern pudús originate from south Chile and south-west Argentina and as they live on the slopes of the Andes (up to 2000m!), they are sometimes referred to as 'Chilean mountain goats' - though I reckon they beat goats any day!

As neither Chile nor Argentina are in the Eurovision Song Contest, they are not currently on my list of countries to visit, though I am very tempted after seeing these guys... fortunately, however, this little guy now puts the Belfast Zoo population of Southern pudú up to four, so I can go see a whole family of them right next door (almost)!

There are only 9 weeks until the end of term and the start of the summer holidays (it really can't come quickly enough) and Belfast has definitely been added to my list of possible holiday destinations for the summer.

Along with Cardigan Bay, for obvious reasons.