Apollo Beats his Chest

Apollo Gorilla of the North Carolina Zoo, is not quite fifteen months old in this recent photo, yet he's feeling particularly frisky. At the very same time that he's beating his chest, he's got his left foot wrapped around a big stick. At the end of that stick are about a dozen twigs full of leaves. He keeps taking that branch and motoring over towards Bomassa. He then threatens his big brother with the branch.

Even baby gorillas have oversized hands

It looks something like what Jane Goodall describes when she speaks of a chimpanzee shaking a branch one of his fellow chimps. It all seems to be part of establishing dominance. But at fifteen months old? Interesting to see this happening when the boys are both so young. Don't miss Deborah Meyers' article about the boys which ran recently in the Chapel Hill News and the Raleigh News&Observer.