By Our gorilla baby is reaching all of her developmental milestones, even though she still relies a lot on her mother Calaya. It’s interesting to note that gorillas grow physically far faster than infant humans. While a 7-month-old human baby would normally be just beginning to roll over and crawl, Zahra has been wobbly walking and standing for a few months already
With the caretakers away, she’s turning into quite the little independent woman! I’ve seen her use her tiny arms to climb on the mesh a good distance away from Calaya on multiple times. She sees me as I first turn the corner and bolts back to her mother’s safety. However, Zahra calms down and knows she’s secure as soon as I come closer and she can see that I’m one of the folks she interacts with virtually every day.
Similar to a 7-month-old human infant, Zahra is in the ‘introduction’ phase of solid foods. She is a bit too young to have her own diet plan since she is still primarily consuming her mother’s milk, but the primate keeper team has started to introduce her to bits of different solid foods. Calaya is not the best sharer, but Zahra will try to sneakily take food from her mother whenever she gets an opportunity. Nothing around Zahra is safe from her little hands!
Recently, Zahra managed to swipe most of a fruitsicle from her mother, and you can tell she was a happy little girl while she was sucking on the frozen fruit juice cube:
