If you look for the most famous gorillas of all time, the name Koko will definitely appear high on the list of results. Koko was a celebrity, known for her said ability to sign more than 1,000 words and understand another 2,000.

The Gorilla was born at the San Francisco Zoo on July 4, 1971, and was the first one born in captivity to be accepted by her mother.

Koko lived with her mother for one year before she was then taken to the zoo’s hospital to be treated for a life-threatening illness.

While at the zoo, Koko was taken care of by Francine “Penny” Patterson, as part of her doctoral research at Stanford University. After some time, she was loaned to Patterson for further research on the condition that she would stay with her for at least four years. She ended up spending her whole life with her until Koko passed away in June 2018.

Patterson claimed that she had taught Koko a variation of the American Sign Language, and she could communicate more or less like a human.

It seemed that besides language, however, Koko featured another characteristic common among humans: the desire to become a parent.

Since Koko had never had the opportunity to become a mother, one day she went over to her caregivers and asked for a kitty. Her humans tried to trick her with life-like stuffed toys, but she never played with them. On the contrary, she signed “sad”, which pretty much summed up how she was feeling about the situation.

In 1984, Koko got a birthday surprise! She was allowed to pick a kitten from a litter that had been abandoned. It was a tailless Manx kitten named “All Ball”.

They fell in love with each other. Koko treated the kitten like a gorilla baby, and it was obvious they had bonded together.

Sadly, though, one day All Ball escaped from Koko’s enclosure and was hit by a car and died.

This incident left Koko heartbroken until, a few years later, she had the chance to become a mother again.

This time, she adopted two kittens that helped her recover from her grief. Unfortunately, the life span for cats is not the same as that of gorillas, and the cats died of natural causes after spending 20 years with Koko. Once again, the gorilla was devastated by the loss.

After that, Koko received regular visits from the Humane Society, until in 2015 it was time for her to adopt her last babies, Ms. Grey and Ms. Black.

Koko was looking at a litter of homeless kittens, among which she found her new babies. She was immediately drawn to Ms. Grey, who looked a lot like All Ball, but Ms. Black instantly fell in love with the big primate.

“The fact that Koko can love, that we can love each other even though we’re a different species, really gets people thinking deeply about life. And that’s what we need to do,” Patterson said.

To learn more about Koko and her kittens throughouth the years, watch the heartwarming video below.

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Source: kokoflix, Wikipedia, Metro