While Canberra was covered in all the colours of the rainbow following the announcement of the marriage law survey result on Wednesday, stripes of a different kind have made an appearance at the National Zoo and Aquarium.
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A female zebra foal was born at the zoo earlier this month, and is slowly finding her feet under the watchful eye of her protective herd.
After almost two years' absence, all four of the zoo's zebras can be seen by visitors in the new "open range" area of the zoo which opened in May this year.
The unnamed foal is by no means the first zebra foal to be born at the zoo, but it the first born in the new enclosure and was born to mum Kike after more than a year of gestation.
Kike and the foal's dad Tambo arrived at the zoo in 2002 and 2012 respectively.
National Zoo operations manager Renee Osterloh said, "It's wonderful to see a new foal in our herd of zebra.
"Kike is a great mum and guests will see that she is never far away from her foal."
The plains zebra is one of six zebra subspecies and is found at elevations of up to 4300 metres.
"We've had huge success with breeding here at the zoo and we're proud to be contributing towards the plains zebra regional programme," Ms Osterloch said.
"Although plains zebra are considered the most widespread zebra in Africa, sadly they still face many threats in the wild, such as habitat loss, hunting and competition with livestock."
