It was one of the more unusual “bring your child to work” days.
Video captured the heartwarming moment a zookeeper introduced her new baby to her gorillas in a series of interspecies playdates for the ages. Videos of the awwww-inspiring encounters have collectively amassed over 30 million viral views on TikTok as of Wednesday afternoon.
“The sweetest boy meeting my sweet baby for the first time,” Kate, who didn’t disclose her last name, captioned the flagship clip, which she reportedly shot at her undisclosed zoo ten weeks into her maternity leave.
The “Tarzan”-evoking footage shows the zookeeper holding up her baby, whose name and age haven’t been revealed, up to the enclosure of a massive male gorilla, who’s sitting with his back to the window. While Might Joe Young initially seems disinterested, he eventually turns around and starts gazing intently at Kate’s new charge.
Another younger gorilla seemed more captivated by the tot, and ran up to the glass immediately upon spotting it, as seen in a second clip. The 3-year-old primate leaned up the glass staring adoringly at the child, and even appeared to blow its mother a goodbye kiss as she left.
This fixation didn’t seem to be shared by the ape’s little brother — dubbed the “baby of the troop” by Kate — who is featured in yet another TikTok whacking his sister’s shoulder, apparently jealous that the human tyke is taking attention away from him.
The interspecies baby showers struck a chord with TikTok fans.
“He’s like ‘aight, let me see it’ lol,” wrote one gawker on the video of Kate presenting her kin to the male ape.
Another commented, “He looks like the grumpy dad-figure that didn’t want a puppy but is about to be besties with it.”
These might seem like anthropomorphizations, however gorillas have seemingly exhibited compassion for human offspring before.
“The sweetest boy meeting my sweet baby for the first time,” Kate, who didn’t disclose her last name, captioned the flagship clip, which she reportedly shot at her undisclosed zoo ten weeks into her maternity leave. TikTokIn the most famous incident at Chicago’s Brookfield zoo in 1996, an 8-year-old female named Binti Jua saved the life of a three-year-old boy who fell into her enclosure. he simian reportedly picked up the unconscious toddler and set him down near the exit, whereupon the paramedics were able to extract him.
Meanwhile, this past summer, a Boston zoo-goer proved that the maternal bond transcends species after she and a mother gorilla held up their babies for each other to see.






