Male Gorillas Love Hanging Around With Infants

Isabukuru, a silverback mountain gorilla who lived in Rwanda until his death last year, was known for being exceptionally affectionate toward the infants in his group. “One infant, named Mushya, was his favorite,” says Stacy Rosenbaum, an anthropologist at Northwestern University. “[Isabukuru] would routinely pick Mushya up, groom him, and try to get him to interact, when Mushya clearly wanted to be doing something else, like playing with his age-mates.”

Though Isabukuru’s fondness for infants was especially striking, such behaviors are fairly common among the mountain gorillas of Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, the same