On July 8, 2026, Uzima and Urithi turned six months old. No mountain gorilla twins in Virunga National Park had ever done that before.
Their mother Mafuko lost her first set of twins in 2016, a week after they were born. The park is explicit that this shapes how she behaves now.
“Their mother, Mafuko, remains especially protective and vigilant, watching over her two infants constantly and limiting their movements whenever she senses potential danger. This is likely influenced by her own experience of losing her first set of twins in 2016, just a week after their birth.”
Virunga National Park
What six months looks like
Their lower incisors have come through. They are handling and mouthing vegetation, which is the beginning of the transition off exclusive nursing and the first point at which an infant gorilla starts to be something other than entirely dependent.
The enhanced monitoring team that stayed with the family every day for the first four months has stepped back to daily rather than all-day observation. That is a decision with a real cost attached, and it means the park’s own people judge the twins past the most dangerous window.
The arithmetic nobody puts in a press release
A mother gorilla carries an infant. Two infants weigh twice as much and cannot be set down. She has to keep up with a group of 59 animals moving through steep forest, feed herself enough to produce milk for two, and stay close enough to the silverback to be protected.
Virunga described her solution earlier this year: one infant on her back, one clinging to her chest, posture adjusted for the longer journeys. Six months of that is why this is a first.
The park’s phrase for the whole business is the right one. Each additional day represents a victory for conservation and an encouragement for all the teams involved.
Where the credit goes
To community trackers, who find these animals every day in a part of eastern Congo that is not safe, and who were the ones who found the twins in the first place.
Virunga credits the European Union and UNESCO for the protection work. It names no zoological institution, and we are not going to invent one. The veterinary side is different: the doctors who treat sick and injured mountain gorillas, including at the park’s orphan facility, are funded by a short list of named zoos.
The first of the two 2026 twin births is covered here, and the second here.
Source: Virunga National Park.
