Daily pic #57: Bikira

Bikira, meaning "virgin" in Swahili, was born at the Amsterdam zoo in 1995. Being rejected by her mother, she was sent to a "gorilla kindergarten" in Stuttgart, Germany, where she spent her tender years in the company of other abandoned and orphaned gorilla babies. After a short stay in Belfast, she arrived in Prague in 2010 and quickly became one of the public favorites - she was recently voted the biggest personality of all the zoo animals in the Czech Republic, you can see why from the picture.

Western lowland gorillas originate from the forests of Central Africa and are the most commonly found in zoos. They usually have only one baby every five years. Bikira has so far given birth to one male baby, called Tano. Unfortunately, she proved unable to look after him, so the baby ended up in the same gorilla kindergarten in the Stuttgart Zoo, where she herself grew up.

It seems that gorillas are very similar to people in this respect - unlike less intelligent animals who are guided by instincts, we must be taught about child rearing.