Mother loses newborn and holds the baby tight even after it's death for almost two weeks. This act of grieving isn't unusual of gorillas but these pictures are touching nonetheless. You can see the family gathering around the mourning mother in the pictures as well.


Virunga veterinarian Jan Ramer said, "While we can never know what is really going on in their heads, it sure seems some gorillas do mourn—or don't accept that the individual is dead.

"When an adult female died last year, her three sons stayed with her body for 24 hours," added Ramer, a regional vet manager for the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project who has studied mountain gorillas since the mid-1980s.

"I believe they were sad and confused, which is how I feel when I am mourning."

—Stefan Lovgren

Tags: gorilla, mourning, death, newborn, mother, behavior,

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