The Brookfield Zoo welcomed its first new resident of 2016 on Saturday when an 11-year-old gray seal named Lily gave birth to a precious little female pup. The little fuzz ball weighed a little more than 30 pounds when she popped out, and the zoo says that she'll be quadruple that weight in less than a month.
If you want to catch a glimpse of the baby before it stops being adorable, you're out of luck. The pup and her mother will remain behind the scenes for a few weeks, by which time the cutest girl in the whole zoo will lose her white fur (called lanugo) and grow shorter, brown hair like an older, washed up seal. The pictures that the zoo provided are about the cuddliest the baby will ever look.
Gray seals aren't endangered in the wild, but the folks at the Chicago area's largest zoo are still pretty excited about the birth. There are currently only 24 of the species in residence at eight institutions across the country, which results in a shortage of darling sea puppies for zoo visitors to gawk at.
