As I already mentioned with 'gender': the sex of a gorilla baby is not always immediately visible. If you haven't read it (yet), please do that before you read this. I also tell there that genders are sometimes determined by how the baby urinates.
In 2) below, the sex was initially determined in this way (pee trickle). The first story is hearsay (I do know and visit that gorilla since 2011); the second story is one I was involved in -if that's the correct way to say it in English- (I know that one from birth) and the third one I read online.
1) A baby gorilla was born on 11 June 2004 in Zoo Berlin. Unfortunately mom couldn't take care of this little one; she didn't know what motherhood was. The head of the apes/monkey department of the zoo, Reimon Opitz, decided to bottle-feed this little one - just like he did with a number of previous gorilla babies, including the most famous one: Bokito. The baby was wearing a diaper (which was also changed regularly, of course), regularly bottled and loved by Mr. and Mrs. Opitz.
After a few months, however, the decision was made to bring the baby to the nursery in Stuttgart this time (put it in my own words). In Stuttgart they were told that a boy was coming. Well, that little boy gave birth to her first child on 24 October 2013 in Burgers' Zoo ...
When they freed the little one from the diaper for the first time in the nursery, they immediately saw that Makoua was a girl. How strange that Mr. Opitz had never noticed while changing the diper that Makoua had a vagina instead of a penis! In September 2021 I was in Zoo Berlin for the 3rd time and there I spoke with a regular visitor who has been following the gorillas there for years. She told me that Mrs. Opitz was the only one who knew it, but no, according to her husband and a caretaker it was a boy (men .....).
And that is a gorilla that was held/carried all day long. You can then check so easily. With other babies, who are raised by their mother, it is a different story. Then you can (like I mentioned with gorilla facts, gender) often only see the gender after days, weeks or months.
2) Ayo from GaiaZOO, born 31 December 2012. Shortly after her birth the zoo could see that it was a girl. Their message at the time 'Faster than expected, the keepers were able to determine the sex of the young on the basis of a pee. After only a week, a keeper saw how the young urinated backwards. With the help of a photo of a visitor, the suspicions were confirmed; the baby is a female! The female has been given the African name Ayo, which means happiness.'
I have been visiting GaiaZOO regularly since 2011. I have seen Ayo grow up. When she was about 7 or 8 months (again: my memory ...) she was lying with her legs spread in front of the window and I saw a little penis. I was immediately taken aback. Didn't GaiaZOO say it's a girl?? So when I saw a keeper a little later, I addressed him "I'm confused, isn't Ayo a boy?". His answer: "No, it's a girl. We've held her a number of times, when her mother was under anesthesia for medical examinations. So we had a good look at it." I replied with saying "Huh, 'she' was just in front of the window and I clearly see a penis!". The reply back "Well no, she just has a big clitoris". I was really confused and so sure I had seen a penis, but hey... they had held Ayo a few times (which I already knew), so they would know. This was in August 2013.
A little less than a year later another gorilla was born, on 2 June 2014. Also a girl: Zola. She really was sooooo beautiful, something Ayo also was. When I was back in GaiaZOO on 29 December 2014, two days before Ayo's second birthday, I spoke to a keeper to ask about Tamidol's pregnancy (baby 3 was on the way). Then I started to talk about Zola, how she was doing so well and I said that she is a beautiful girl, just as beautiful as her big sister Ayo. I also told her that I visit a lot of gorillas, but that Ayo is really the most beautiful girl I know.
I was in shock when I heard her say "Ayo is a boy". I really didn't know what I was hearing and just looked at her for a few seconds with my mouth wide open. Then I told her about my earlier comment to a colleague of hers, that I had seen a penis and her colleague's reaction then. Yes, she knew. But they had only just discovered it. Mama Dalila had to go under anesthesia again and when they looked at Ayo again they saw that he is a boy after all. Partly because Zola was there and there was really something different to see between Zola's legs than between Ayo's legs. Ayo may have 'that big clitoris', but not such a slice (vagina) as Zola had, they realized. Even during the 4 times of holding 'her' (Ayo) they hadn't seen that. They were also ashamed. They simply shouldn't have trusted a visitor's photo that much (because that's what the keeper told me; they had). It's not easy to tell the studbook keeper shortly before his second birthday that Ayo is a boy instead of a girl.
When I asked if I could immediately share the news with the world, she said "yes, go ahead, we don't pay any further attention to it through a press release or something, but you can share the news". And I immediately did that on Facebook, in a few groups (both national and international).
Ayo moved to a French zoo in 2020, to a bachelor group.
And then suddenly on 23 May 2018 (!!), almost 6 years and 8 months later, the news came in a Facebook group from a regular visitor that Kukena was a girl. Jeez, how bizarre. How she discovered it is also special. Kukena had her cycle for the first time (I don't know much about that, that probably means as much as she menstruated for the first time?).
So suddenly Komale (who I know from Beekse Bergen) didn't have a younger brother, but a younger sister. Kukena moved to Madrid in early March 2020, where she became a mom for the first time on 28 January 2022.
Below a few pictures of Kuke (as she is also called) from various dates.
Photo taken by Miriam Haas, November 2014
Photo taken by Katie Horrocks, November 2017
with her son Kibo, photo taken by Christina Garcia, June 2022
