Gorilla who kept dead baby gives birth again

August 4, 2009 (BERLIN) Twelve-year-old Gana's very public mourning for her last child gained widespread attention last year. The baby gorilla, Claudio, died when he was three months old of a severe intestinal infection.

Gana's new daughter was born early Sunday, said Ilona Zuehlke, a spokeswoman for the Allwetter Zoo in Muenster.

The newborn is healthy and lively, much to the mother's apparent joy, Zuehlke said Tuesday.

"Gana looks very happy," she told The Associated Press.

Zuehlke said the zoo probably would name the baby Claudia -- after Claudia Kleinert, a German television weather forecaster and presenter.

The zoo asked Kleinert to be the baby's godmother because "she showed enormous interest in the mother's last baby, which ended up dying tragically," Zuehlke said.

Visitors already can see the new arrival, one of the zoo's six gorillas.

The baby is Gana's third. Her first child, a female born in 2007, now lives at the Stuttgart zoo.

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