(NEWSnet/AP) — Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who has been making weather predictions since his first one in 1886, is now a father!

The Pennsylvania group that handles Phil, and his groundhog wife, Phyllis, says the couple have become parents.

The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club said in a social media post on Wednesday that Phyllis recently gave birth to two healthy babies. It did not specify their sex or give names for either one.

“We’re pleased to announce that Punxsutawney Phil has had his first children; we believe there are two baby groundhogs and that Phil and Phyllis have started a family,” Thomas Dunkel, president of a tuxedo-clad group called The Inner Circle that carries on the groundhog tradition each year, said at a news conference Wednesday. “We’re pleased about it, and I talked to Phil with my cane, which lets me speak Groundhogese, and Phil could not be more excited that he started a family.”

 

Dunkel said a club member discovered the babies Saturday when he came to feed their parents fruit and vegetables.

A video of the new arrivals shows the healthy woodchuck babies wriggling with each other.

Phil emerges from his burrow each year on the morning of Feb. 2. If he sees his shadow, tradition holds, there will be six more weeks of winter. This year, he did not see his shadow, heralding an early spring.

Phil and Phyllis live in climate-controlled quarters at the Punxsutawney Memorial Library.

But like most growing families, they now need larger digs. The club plans to move them to a larger home on the library’s grounds.

Phil is not exactly a young dad, the club says. He is "officially" 138 years old.

The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club previously said that Phil has never had any children, that is until now. Phil's longevity has come from drinking the "elixir of life."

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