Gorilla baby growing up

Category: Cameroon, Gorilla, Simone de Vries, endangered species
Date: January 14th 2010
By: limbewildlifecentre

In March last year Akiba gave birth to daughter Atinbi. Atinbi is growing up well and starts to be more and more independent. She is now allowed to wander off on her own and only when it takes too long Akiba comes to pick her up. Akiba is a great mom, who knows when to be protective and when it is okay for her daughter to explore. Most of the time Atinbi is riding on the back of her mom.

akiba-and-atinbi.jpg

Akiba spents much time with Benito, a 14 year old male in the group. Benito is a very gentle and calm gorilla, which is probably why he still doesn’t get himself into trouble with the silverback Chella. Akiba is completely relaxed when Atinbi crawls on Benito’s lap and plays with him. So far we have always thought that Chella is the father of Atinbi, because mating between him and Akiba was observed. I am now starting to wonder if it might have been Benito. Would gorilla females know who is the father of their offspring?

Best wishes,

Simone

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6 Comments

  1. Sherri S.
    Posted January 14, 2010 at 8:34 pm | Permalink

    Thank you for the update. Atinbi is certainly a beautiful little girl!

  2. Therese
    Posted January 20, 2010 at 4:35 am | Permalink

    Was any mating observed with Benito?

  3. limbewildlifecentre
    Posted January 20, 2010 at 10:27 am | Permalink

    We have never seen any mating between Benito and Akiba. But he might be shy and do it at night…

  4. Jane Dewar
    Posted January 20, 2010 at 7:23 pm | Permalink

    Antibi looks like baby photos of Benito – what do the staff like Bama and Jonathan think?

  5. Max Block
    Posted January 27, 2010 at 6:01 pm | Permalink

    Is Balinga still there? If he is how is he doing?

  6. Max Block
    Posted January 27, 2010 at 6:02 pm | Permalink

    And will you do a paternaty test on the babies?

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