If you followed the order of the menu, you just read about the silverback. It's clear that that's a man. Women are also generally easy to recognize. But how do you know whether a kid is a boy or a girl?
You can't see it when you look at the face or body of a baby /toddler. There is only one way to determine the sex and that is by looking between the legs. This is basically how the gender is determined after birth (sooner or later).
That's not easy, by the way. The mother carries her newborn non-stop against her belly for the first time, always supporting it with her hand. That makes it difficult to 'look between the legs'.
Sometimes it takes days, weeks or months, but sometimes it goes very quickly. In zoos some mothers sometimes lie very relaxed on their back in a good place with the baby on her belly and then they don't have to support the newborn and the hand can therefore go away. In that case it often is visible.
Even then it's sometimes still difficult. The difference between a penis and clitoris with newborn gorillas isn't always clear. I'm not going to go into detail about the whole thing down there, but I will only say this: of course a boy also has testicles, but they are not always immediately visible.
Depending on how long it takes, a name is quickly or not quickly chosen and announced. The fact is that almost every zoo wants to choose a boy or girl name and must therefore be sure of the gender.
Among gorilla enthusiasts it is sometimes a sport to be the first to see the sex. Yes, I've been guilty of that too. You should see them (okay, 'us'). Constantly those gigantic camera lenses focused on that part of the baby where it can be seen. As soon as mom puts her hand away when the baby is on her belly while she's on her back, all those crazy people start taking photos as fast as possible. Then those photos are immediately viewed and zoomed in on. Often it is still bad luck because it is not completely clear. As soon as 'THE' photo is there, the person in question is happy to share it with a caregiver.
There is another way to determine the sex. That is by looking at the pee stream of the baby. If that is a very hard, powerful stream that goes straight in one direction, then it comes from a penis. Is it less powerful and tight, say more dripping, then it comes from a vagina.
It has happened in the past that a gorilla was assigned the wrong gender. You can read more about 3 of those cases known to me under various.
