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Science correspondent, BBC News
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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.
“Scientifically, I don’t know if I can talk about ‘friendship’,” explained lead researcher Victoire Martignac, a PhD researcher form the University of Zurich. “But we’re showing here that these same sex relationships really matter.”
Moving into different groups is key in shaping the animals’ social structure. It’s something that both males and females do – females will sometimes move several times throughout their lives.
This dispersal, as it’s known, plays a role in avoiding inbreeding, spreading gene diversity and shaping social relationships.
“In the wild it is very important,” explained Ms Martignac.
“But it’s extremely hard to study, because once individuals leave a group, it’s hard to keep track of them.”
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