Video: Mandara and baby enjoy the warm winter weather! - 849

Update: The NZ announced on 2-4-09 that she's a baby girl!

Our weather today got up to 59 (!) degrees so the keepers let the gorillas into the outside yard...Mandara and her 3 week old baby were one of the first ones at the door! Their attentive keepers threw them carrot and broccoli pieces for them to forage throughout the yard. There was still some remaining ice and snow on the ground that the gorilla boys, Kwame and Kojo, liked to eat and throw up in the air and at each other. In fact, all the gorillas and orangs seemed to like picking up the ice pieces and eating them.

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The National Zoo announced today that its three-week-old baby gorilla is a female. In a recent interview with DCist, the Zoo's Associate Director for Animal Care, Don Moore, explained why it can often take a long time to determine the sex of a baby gorilla, and ventured that due to the baby's lineage, it would be more important if it turned out to be a female than a male, so this is apparenly good gorilla genetic news! The baby was born on January 10 to 26-year-old mom Mandara and 16-year-old dad silverback Baraka.

dcist.com/2009/02/national_zoos_baby_gorilla_is_a_gir.php

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Thanks to jdbartross!