Baby Gorilla Chest Pound
Exciting times at the North Carolina Zoo! Bomassa Gorilla, now eight months old, has started to beat his chest!
In lieu of video, I give you a collage of six shots of him practicing this maneuver. He does not quite have it down and is still working on his coordination. I am not entirely sure that he is making any noise. Typically, a male gorilla will beat his chest with cupped hands, not with fists. This creates a loud sound, which serves to scare off an intruder, or to let a challenging gorilla know he has stepped into the wrong territory. Sometimes the chest beating is used as a means of communicating a gorilla's whereabouts to the rest of the troop. As yet, I have not observed Bomassa's little brother Apollo beating his chest, and nor have the keepers. But it won't be long. Remember, the
two gorilla boys were born in the very same month!
Thank you so much, Wendy. I really enjoyed your blog. The meet and feed the gorillas was such a thrill Saturday and worth every penny! I look forward to continuing to keep up with these guys through your blog, especially when the new boy comes in to total 3 babies! Lynn
ReplyDeleteThanks for checking in, Lynn! Its a tremendous amount of fun following these babies and their troop and its wonderful to have you following along in the journey.
ReplyDeleteDid they say they expect another boy, though? I thought they said the sonogram is very hard to work with, given the physical constraints and the inability to freely position the probe. So my understanding is that Acacia may have either a boy or a girl and at this point we just don't know.