Mandrill Half Brother, Sister Baby Monkeys Debut At L.A. Zoo Tuesday

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A pair of mandrill baby monkeys recently born at the Los Angeles Zoo will make their media debut Tuesday.

A female baby was born on Aug. 3 to five-year-old mother, Juliette.

A male baby was born on Aug. 17 to four-year-old mother, Clementine.

The first-time mothers were brought to the zoo in April 2016 from Parc Zoologique de La Palmyr in France.

The babies share the same first-time father, six-year-old Jabari, as part of a species survival program.

"This is a very new breeding group of mandrills that has only been together for about a year, so we're incredibly happy with how well things are going so far," said L'Oreal Dunn, an animal keeper at the zoo. "This species comes from a small area in Africa that isn't accessible to most people, so it's very special that our guests can now observe babies here for the first time in over 40 years."

Mandrills in the wild live in the rainforests of western Africa in Cameroon, Gabon and southwestern Congo, according to the zoo.

Their population is declining due to habitat loss and the spread of agriculture and human settlement.

The primates are often hunted as bushmeat as many Africans consider them to be a delicacy.