INTERNATIONAL: The Smithsonian National Zoo's prehensile-tailed porcupine couple, Beatrix and Quillbur, have a big announcement to make that may warm your heart. The porcupine couple have welcomed their second little porcupette, as baby porcupines are known, into the world on the night of January 3. The Washington D.C.’s National Zoo has made the announcement official in a tweet on Wednesday. And their new kid is looking sharp!

Small Mammal House keepers have reported for duty January 4 and discovered Beatrix had given birth overnight, the Smithsonian's National Zoo media website has reported. The porcupette - is seen with mom Beatrix is in all of the visuals released by the zoo. Dad Quillbur is in a different habitat, for now, to allow mom and porcupette to bond.

The now nearly three-week-old porcupette looks cosy with mom and is nursing well and gaining weight. The zoo team is looking forward to learning if the newborn will take after Beatrix, who is relaxed and easy-going, or be more active and curious like dad Quillbur.

These sharpy little beauties look anatomically similar until they reach 6 months of age. Smithsonian Zoo keepers sent quill samples to scientists at the Zoo's Center for Conservation Genomics for DNA analysis and hope to reveal their porcupette's sex and its name in a few weeks.

The porcupette's elder sibling was born in November of 2019, after Beatrix and Quillbur bred for the first time. Quillbur was transferred to the National Zoo from upstate New York specifically for this purpose about a year before their first porcupette was born.

Like its older sibling, the new and as yet unnamed porcupette is the fourth generation of Beatrix's family living in the zoo, according to a press release shared after the birth of Beatrix's first baby.

Prehensile-tailed porcupines are native to South America and one of 18 species of porcupines native to North, South and Central America. When a porcupette is born, its protective quills are soft and hair-liked, but they harden minutes after birth. By three days old, a newborn's quills can be prickly enough to hurt. Once this newborn is old enough, he or she will be in the zoo's Small Mammal House, climbing in manmade tree canopies, and munching on leaves, flowers, shoots, and other vegetation with their porcupine family.

^{PHOTO:  OF A PORCUPETTE, AS BABY PORCUPINES ARE KNOWN, AS SHE MAKES HER PUBLIC DEBUT IN THE SMITHSONIAN'S NATIONAL ZOO IN WASHINGTON D.C.}