What Is a Baby Animal Called? 21 Answers
21 questions, every one with the answer, a short explanation, and where it comes from.
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Baby Animal questions and answers
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What is a baby giraffe called?
A calf
A giraffe calf falls around two metres to the ground at birth, and is usually standing within an hour.
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What is a baby whale called?
A calf
Whales are mammals, so they take cattle terms: a calf, born to a cow, in a herd or pod.
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What is a baby llama called?
A cria
Cria is simply the Spanish word for a baby animal, adopted into English for camelids specifically.
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A cygnet
Cygnet comes from cygnus, the Latin for swan. Cygnets are grey-brown for their first year before the white adult plumage grows in.
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What is a baby deer called?
A fawn
Fawns are born with white spots that break up their outline in dappled woodland light, and fade as they grow.
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What is a baby zebra called?
A foal
Zebras are horses, so they take the horse terms. A zebra foal can stand within about twenty minutes of birth.
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What is a baby goose called?
A gosling
Goslings can walk and feed themselves within a day of hatching, which is why they follow a parent almost immediately.
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What is a baby hedgehog called?
A hoglet
Hoglets are born with soft white spines under the skin, which harden and darken within hours so the mother is not injured during birth.
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What is a baby goat called?
A kid
The human sense of 'kid' came later, borrowed from the animal as slang in the 16th century.
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What is a baby ferret called?
A kit
Kit is short for kitten, and the same word covers the young of foxes, beavers and rabbits as well as ferrets.
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What is a baby hare called?
A leveret
Leverets are born fully furred with their eyes open, unlike rabbit kits, which are born blind and bald.
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What is a baby porcupine called?
A porcupette
Porcupettes are born with soft quills that harden within a few days.
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What is a baby turkey called?
A poult
Poult is used for the young of several game birds, and is the root of 'poultry'.
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What is a baby echidna called?
A puggle
Both are monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs, and the hatchling is a hairless jellybean-sized puggle.
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What is a baby seal called?
A pup
Grey seal pups are born with white fur they moult within about three weeks, before they can safely swim.
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A spat
Oyster larvae swim freely before settling onto a hard surface and cementing themselves down for life. That settled stage is spat.
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A spiderling
Spiderlings hatch already looking like tiny adults, and many disperse by 'ballooning' on strands of silk carried by the wind.
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A squab
Squabs stay in the nest far longer than most birds, which is why city pigeons seem to appear fully grown and baby pigeons are rarely seen.
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What is a baby eel called?
An elver
European eels spawn in the Sargasso Sea, and the elvers spend up to three years drifting to European rivers.
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What is a baby owl called?
An owlet
An eyas is specifically a young hawk or falcon, not an owl.
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What is a baby kangaroo called?
Joey
A joey is born very undeveloped and crawls into its mother's pouch. It continues growing there while nursing and becoming strong enough to emerge.
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