Happy World Wildlife Day! Sketched by me, coloured in and named by my daughter to celebrate, introducing Frank and Ruby. After chimpanzees and bonobos, gorillas are our closest living relatives sharing 98% DNA with us and are very like humans in many ways (https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/gorilla#). However, mountain gorillas have a much more generous coverage of thick hair (although not in all cases, my friend Dave is very hairy) to keep them warm at high elevations in the Virunga Mountains (https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/mountain-gorilla#).
They're such cool and fascinating primates which you can see by merely looking at how lovingly this dominant silverback is tending to his baby. At the moment there are less than 1,000 lowland and upland mountain gorillas left in the Congo Basin, but due to careful conservation efforts over the last few years, numbers have been increasing (https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/mountain-gorilla#). Hooray. So, here's to all the incredible wildlife out there, may it continue to rock the world with its sheer beauty and presence.
More information can be found at https://www.wildlifeday.org/.
