It’s a boy. Two weeks after the arrival of its latest star, Dublin Zoo today finally revealed details about the baby gorilla's sex.
Keepers have apparently been inundated with questions about the infant from inquisitive onlookers.
The young gorilla was “cradled non-stop” by its doting mother Lena in the immediate days after his birth that even keepers were unable to identify the baby’s sex.
"We were just as eager to find out the sex of the newborn as much as everyone else," said the team leader responsible for the gorillas, Ciaran McMahon.
"I'm delighted to say that both mum and baby are doing extremely well. Lena is such an experienced mother that we have every confidence in her nurturing and rearing a healthy baby boy," he said.
The baby western lowland gorilla, yet to be named, was born last month, weighing just 1.81kg.
The infant joined a band of five gorillas at the zoo, which includes two siblings: Alfie, who was born in 2003 and Evindi, who was born three years later.
The gorilla’s father Harry, a 24-year-old silverback weighing an impressive 205kg, is said to be keeping a protective eye on his new charge.
The gorillas are due to be moved from their antiquated enclosure in the main section of the campus to a new rainforest habitat in the African Plains area in September.
The western lowland sub-species of gorilla are classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
The number of these impressive ground-dwelling primates is estimated to have fallen by more than 80 per cent in the wild as a result of commercial hunting and the highly contagious Ebola virus.