Seven new animals from South Africa has found their home in the Garden of Good Hope

The white lion Maša and six mercats are the hew habitants of the Zoo in Belgrade since yesterday. This animals arrived from South Africa as a gift from the National Park Kriger to the Garden of Good Hope.

-The white lion kitten is six months old, and is a very rear species, because the white lion hair is rearly inherited. Every 1000th kitten is born with this characteristic. The male white lion is even rearer because, once it is born, it dies in the struggles and fights because of his noticable colour - says Vuk Bojović, the manager of the Zoo in Belgrade.

The visitors of the Zoo in Belgrade have already had the opportunity to see a pair of white lions, but the female recently became brown spots on her white fur. That was the sign that she wasn't a pure-blood white lion. Maša came as a "replacement", and now she is in a cage with the "regular" female Kjara.

-We can prudly say that we are now the only Zoo in Europe that has a white lion. Even Asian Zoos don't have this animals - says Bojović. He adds da Maša is a real kitten, not like a beast at all.

The six mercats are well adjusted to their new home too. This animals are from South Africa, and their are the first from their species in the Belgrade Zoo. The Mercats are small animals, with an unusual apperance. They are very fast and clever, and the manager calls them "a littel game of nature". They usually live in the desert and eat bugs, scorpios, snakes and bird eggs.

-They usually live in big families, and we are hoping for some new famiy members soon. Our main plan now is to work on their tameing - says Bojović.

The manager from the Zoo announces that, by the end of this summer, american white bisons and white tigers from Russia are comming to Belgrade. The white bison should be a great attraction because he is a very rear animal species.

The Zoo is open from 8am to 8pm, one ticket costs 250 dinars for grown-ups and 200 dinars for kids. Children under 3 don't pay entrance, and a ticket in a group visit is 150 dinars each.