Tara Stoinski

So he disappeared.

We searched for him for months but couldn't find him.

So yeah, so he's now left the group.

The good news is...

There are two younger boys that are coming up, one who's the brother of Abuzu that will hopefully continue to support him.

But there was another infant death right at the end of filming that we weren't able to capture.

We weren't sure what had happened, but the thought was that Mphura had killed that infant.

He's killed four infants in total.

He keeps coming back and then killing them and leaving?

Infanticide is a pretty common reproductive strategy in gorillas, but it's always directed towards infants that are not in your family.

Right.

We've only had two other instances in 60 years where an infant was killed by a male within its own group.

Two?

Two in 60 years.

So for this guy to kill four kids, and there were other infants that were born in the group that he didn't kill, and they were born to his aunts.

So that's really interesting as well.

My best guess is that when these females move into a family group, like I was saying earlier, it's a tentative time for them because they're not like fully integrated.

And what we will see and actually what Mfora tried to do later on after the movie finished was the young males view that as their moment.

Like, okay, before these females settle in, let me kind of herd them off and form my own group with them.

So I wonder if there was a piece of him that was like, hey, if her infant, because when a female has a baby, she is not interested in a male for another four years because she's busy taking care of that baby.