The patter of tiny feet continues at the Highland Wildlife Park with red panda twins becoming the latest additions.
The cute kits are now being cared for by their mother before being unveiled to the public in the next few weeks.
They were born to parents Kitty and Kevyn last month but the park has only now revealed the birth.
It is Kitty’s second successful birth after she reared a single cub last year – a male called Kush, who was the first red panda to be born in one of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland’s collections in 13 years.
Kush was recently send to Curraghs Wildlife Park on the Isle of Man as their new breeding male.
Douglas Richardson, head of living collections for the Highland Wildlife Park, said: “We are of course thrilled by the birth of twin red pandas, but it is doubly satisfying as a number of red panda pairs in zoos breed once, then do nothing in subsequent years. The fact that Kitty has produced cubs two years in a row is a very strong indication that our enclosure, diet and husbandry regime suits this pair of pandas.”
Red panda cubs are born blind, only opening their eyes after about 18 days.
Red pandas are classified as Vulnerable with less than 10,000 individuals thought to remain in the wild. The population is threatened by both deforestation and poaching. The Highland Wildlife Park is part of the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP) that is run by the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA).