The surprising arrival of a 'cheeky' new baby zebra at National Zoo

Ms Ware was putting out food for the Barbary sheep when she realised what she had seen.

"I saw Kiva and I thought she looked a bit funny. Her belly wasn't as big," she said. "And I was like 'Oh my gosh, we have a baby'.

"I was very excited."

The foal born overnight at the National Zoo and Aquarium was discovered on Wednesday morning by thrilled staff members.

"It's doing really well, definitely a bit cheeky," Ms Ware said. "It's happened in the school holidays which means so many people can come in and experience this little fresh baby."

While the foal's sex is not yet known, zookeepers noted its especially long legs (almost as long as its mum's) and a brown patch on its head. After a year-long gestation period, the baby plains zebra was estimated to weigh about 40 kilograms at birth.

The keepers will be only able to determine its sex and characteristics in a few days as mum, Kiva, is very protective of the little one.

Stallion Tambo is the father to most zebra foals in the zoo. Keepers said he was a "great dad" and had been very nurturing towards the new baby.

"We can't get too close to baby to have a look. It just takes a couple of days of us really closely monitoring baby's behaviour," Ms Ware said.

The last five zebra foals born at the zoo have been males, meaning the keepers are pinning their hopes on it being female.

The yet-to-be-named foal is the 27th zebra born in the last 10 years as a result of the National Zoo's ongoing breeding program.

"Having those kind of set goals has been fantastic for the breeding program in Australia," Ms Ware said. "We tend to have babies every six months but we will see what happens. You don't want to spoil anything."

Many of the previous foals have been sent to different zoos around the country to begin their own breeding programs.

Plains zebras are the most common zebra species and are not classified as endangered animals. Despite this, keepers said zoo's breeding program ensures their survival if populations in the wild were threatened.

"If we can bring those animals numbers up in captivity, we then have that insurance population if something happened," Ms Ware said. "The eventual goal is to be able to release those animals back into their natural habitats."

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Zoo veterinarian Joanne Johnson said the biggest threat to zebras was habitat loss and overhunting. She said the animals needed plenty of open spaces, food to eat and urbanisation and agriculture had been taking up more land.

"They're a migratory species also. So when fences are put up and roads are built, those kinds of things can impact the way that they can move across their natural habitat so they can unfortunately be prone to lose [numbers] out in the wild," Dr Johnson said.