Twin mountain gorillas born in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

A pair of twin mountain gorillas has been born in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo – in what it described as a major event for the endangered subspecies. The community trackers, who discovered 22-year-old Mafuko hugging her newborns today, said the mother and her two baby sons all appeared to be well and healthy. Virunga, situated in a conflict-prone part of DR Congo, is Africa’s oldest and largest national park and was set up 100 years ago to protect mountain gorillas of which there are fewer than 1,100 left in the wild. Twin births are thought to account for about 1% of all mountain gorilla births, though exact data is not widely available.