Are they cute? Maybe a little scary? What we know for sure is that there are three more of them at the San Diego Zoo, which announced this week that a fossa had given birth to a litter of pups, who join nearly 40 others born at the zoo since 1989.

Fossa, which look kind of like a mountain lion crossed with a ferret, are natives of the island of Madagascar.

According to Merriam-Webster, a fossa is "a slender, long-tailed, carnivorous mammal ( Cryptoprocta ferox of the family Eupleridae ) of Madagascar that has retractile claws, usually reddish-brown or sometimes black, short, thick fur and anal scent glands."

Natural history writer Fiona Sunquist, who is quoted by the online dictionary, writes that the fossa has evolved on the island to fill the role normally occupied by nocturnal c

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