For the mountain gorillas of the Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2026 started in a very special way: on 3 January, twins were born to Mafuko in the Bageni group. This is the largest group in the park with 59 members. The park authorities waited for some time to see whether the babies would survive, and when they were 2 months old, they were named Uzima and Urithi. Both are males.

In March, there was a new sensation: another set of twins was born in the Baraka group, which now has 19 members. One of them is female and one is male.

In the Virunga National Park, twin births were recorded already in 2016 and 2020, but in those cases, the twins did not survive (in 2016, the mother was also Mafuko, both of them died within the first week, in 2020 one of them after a few days). Several gorilla twin births were recorded in other places, but usually either one or both babies died at a very young age. Let's hope it will be different with these twins!

News from the park