The photo that made Anaka famous is a close-up of a young western lowland gorilla's fingers. Most of her hand is the usual dark grey-black, but several fingertips are pink and pale, and that lighter skin makes every crease, knuckle wrinkle and flat fingernail stand out. Seen this way, the hand looks startlingly like a human one.
Anaka lives at Zoo Atlanta in Georgia, USA. She was born there on 30 August 2013, the 22nd gorilla born in the zoo's Ford African Rain Forest, and she is a grandchild of Willie B., the silverback who became one of Atlanta's best-loved animals. When the zoo posted pictures for her sixth birthday in August 2019, the close-up of her fingers drew a flood of comments, and in December 2019 it went viral around the world.
Why does her hand look so familiar? Gorillas are among our closest living relatives. After chimpanzees and bonobos, they are the next nearest branch of the family tree, and the shared anatomy of the hand reflects millions of years of common ancestry. Below, each photo is explained, along with what science says about the resemblance and one claim worth correcting.
The birthday post that started it
This is Zoo Atlanta's own Facebook post, which shared several images of Anaka for her birthday. Fans responded with birthday wishes, but many comments focused on the same thing: how much her fingers looked like theirs.
The zoo explained that visitors can always pick Anaka out of her family group by the pink pigmentation on her fingers. She lives in the troop led by the silverback Taz, along with her mother and siblings.
A closer look at Anaka's fingers
This crop shows what caught people's attention. The pale skin reveals deep knuckle creases, wrinkled finger pads and short, flat nails, all features we see on our own hands. On a fully dark-skinned gorilla these details are present too, but they are much harder to notice in a photo.
Like humans, gorillas have nails rather than claws, and they use them to pick, scratch, peel and groom. Their fingertips and toes also carry friction ridges, the patterns we call fingerprints, which improve grip and are unique to each individual.
A second close-up shows the same pink patches as Anaka grips something. Gorilla thumbs are opposable, so she can press thumb against finger to hold small objects, although the gorilla thumb is shorter relative to the fingers than ours. That difference suits an animal that knuckle-walks and climbs, putting much of its weight on its hands.
Anaka at home in Atlanta
Anaka is pictured here as a youngster beside an adult of her troop. Western lowland gorillas live in family groups usually led by one silverback male, with several females and their young, and juveniles stay close to their mothers for years.
Zoo Atlanta describes her as a confident character who often barks at her mother and others to win the best spot at feeding time, and who likes to ride piggyback on her siblings.
Perched on a thick branch, Anaka shows the long arms and strong hands that let gorillas climb and forage. Young gorillas are more agile than the heavy adults and spend more time playing and climbing.
The highlighted box in this pair of images marks where her pink fingers sit, so viewers could find the detail in a full-body shot. The lighter patches are small, which is why the close-up was needed to make the comparison clear.
Is it vitiligo? What we actually know
Many viral posts said Anaka has vitiligo, the condition in which patches of skin lose their pigment. Some headlines also described her as lacking pigmentation altogether. Zoo Atlanta's own statements simply describe her as having unique pink and white colouring in her fingers, and we have not seen the zoo announce a diagnosis.
Patchy pale skin can have several causes in animals, and some individuals are simply born with lighter areas. The safest description is the zoo's: a distinctive natural colouring that helps keepers and visitors recognise her.
How close are humans and gorillas?
Figures quoted online for human-gorilla DNA similarity range from 95 to 99%. The range exists because the figure depends on what is counted. When scientists published the first gorilla genome in the journal Nature in March 2012, using DNA from Kamilah, a female western lowland gorilla at the San Diego Zoo, one of the authors put the human-gorilla sequence similarity at about 98%.
The same study found a surprising mosaic. In about 70% of the genome humans are closest to chimpanzees, but in around 15% we are closer to gorillas than chimps are. Humans, chimpanzees and gorillas shared a common ancestor roughly 10 million years ago, and the human and chimpanzee lines separated about 6 million years ago.
That shared heritage shows up in the hand. Five digits, nails, fingerprints and an opposable thumb are all part of the primate toolkit. Anaka's pink fingers did not create the resemblance; they made it easier to see.
Why it matters for gorillas
Western lowland gorillas are listed as critically endangered, threatened by poaching, habitat loss and disease, including Ebola. Zoo populations such as Atlanta's take part in managed breeding programmes and help fund field conservation in Central Africa.
Photos like Anaka's work because they collapse the distance between "them" and "us". If a close-up of a hand makes someone curious enough to learn about wild gorillas, or to support groups protecting them, it has done more than entertain.
Sources: Photos: Zoo Atlanta: Anaka and Zoo Atlanta's Facebook page; My Modern Met, 26 December 2019: Close-up photo of gorilla reveals pink fingers; National Geographic, 6 March 2012: Gorilla genome sequenced.
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