The relationships built up between female mountain gorillas are more important than previously understood, new research from Rwanda suggests.
It shows that when one of these social great apes moves into a new group, she will seek out and join another female she already knows.
Scientists based the research on 20 years of data covering multiple groups of gorillas in Volcanoes National Park, in Rwanda.
The scientists found that even when two females had been apart for many years, a newly arrived gorilla would still try to join a female she had formed a previous connection with.
The findings, published in the Royal Society Journal Proceedings B, show how important the relationship between two individual females is in gorilla society.
