The spotted cub and her two sisters were born Oct. 4 to mother Naom and father Chack, who first went on display in May at the zoo's new Legends of the Wild exhibit.

Naom and the cubs will remain indoors for several months and out of public view. Zoo officials say a contest to name the cubs will begin in a few weeks.

Riggs is hand-feeding Maya -- her unofficial name -- because the mother is giving most of her attention to the other two cubs, which is not uncommon, zoo officials say.

She was initially fed through a tube and now takes milk products through a human baby bottle -- the same type of liquids house cats get, Riggs said.

The zoo staff checks the cubs' heart rate and weight frequently to see if they are at levels expected by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's Species Survival Plan, he said.

Jaguars, the largest cats in the Americas, are an endangered species. The zoo association's captive-breeding plan aims to maintain a genetically healthy population.

Chack is 5 and came to Akron from a Guatemala zoo, the son of two wild jaguars. Naom is 4 and came to Akron from the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.

The Akron Zoo likely will have the cubs for up to a year, Riggs said. How long they can stay and where they will go will be up to the Species Survival Plan.

That $8.6 million exhibit and a 35,000-square-foot education center featuring Komodo dragons opened this year. They are credited with helping the zoo set attendance records.

This is not, however, the first jaguar birth at the Akron Zoo. A black jaguar named Maxwell was born in August 1985 and moved a year later to the Cincinnati Zoo.

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