First Steps

See how the babies learn to understanding their surroundings in environments ranging from Africa to Sri Lanka to Iceland. The most basic tools for survival must be learned in their first three months to thrive and ultimately survive.

Savanna elephants spend their lives on the move, foraging for food and looking for water. Even newborn babies are expected to walk from day one. Baby Safina may have to cover nine miles a day, and more than 2,000 miles in her first year. But sometimes walking isn't as simple as putting one foot in front of the other as Safina discovers when she has to cross mud for the first time.

In Uganda, a tiny miracle is hidden in the last fragment of a once-giant forest kingdom, called Bwindi, the impenetrable forest: a baby mountain gorilla, Nyakabara. Her name means "marked," because she was born with a white bracelet of fur, never seen before. Nyakabara is one of perhaps only 50 mountain gorilla babies in the world, and at eight weeks old she weighs only five pounds.