BBC: Female gorillas clap hands to communicate

[BurtWorm]

:applause:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8027000/8027622.stm



Gorilla mums keep family in check

Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

Female gorillas clap their hands to get the attention of male silverbacks and infants.

The discovery in the forests of central Africa is only the second time the behaviour has been recorded in wild western lowland gorillas.

It suggests that the great apes use hand-clapping to communicate over long distances and keep the family group together.

The discovery is published in the journal Primates.

"What struck me most was how it was conducted in such a controlled and deliberate manner while in a bipedal position; much like a human would hand clap," says Ammie Kalan of Oxford Brookes University, in Oxford, UK.

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[imdjh]

1. Female gorillas and elementary school teachers. n/t

[BurtWorm]

2. I knew some elementary school teachers who might have been gorillas

now that I think of it.

[imdjh]

3. IT's hard to tell under all that fur.

[BurtWorm]

4. Now I'm having a hard time looking at that photo in the OP without hearing "Class! CLASS!"

[Hell Hath No Fury]

5. Damn I love gorillas!

:loveya:

I had a great experience at the SF zoo many years back. They had a large, ground level glass wall in the gorilla enclosure that vistors could walk up to and watch from. I went to the zoo one winter during the week - the zoo waa pratically deserted. I went to that glass wall and the big silver back was sitting with his back against it, watching out over the troop. I approached the wall and sat down with my back to it, around 10 feet away from him. Over the course of 45 minutes, we worked our way towards each other, until we were almost shoulder to shoulder. We gave each other a very thorough checking out, communicating with our eyes. There was definitely someone there looking back at me.

It was one of the biggest thrills of my life. :loveya:

[canadianbeaver]

6. Now that is totally cool.......

what an awesome experience you were able to be apart of.....Lucky you!!

[Hell Hath No Fury]

8. It was amazing!

I used to read about Dian Fossey in National Geographic when I was a kid -- it was a dream of mine to interact with primates. There may have been glass between us, but we interacted most certainly. :hi:

[BurtWorm]

7. The Bronx Zoo has a similar exhibit.

When my daughter was a bit younger, we went through with a little doll. My daughter held it up to the window and a female came over and became fascinated with it. She tried to touch it through the glass, looking questioningly at my daughter. Suddenly, she stood up on her legs and, elbows straight out and index fingers pointing in, gave her nipples two strokes, as if to say, "Is that a baby? Would she like milk?" Everyone who witnessed it gasped.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

9. That is sooo cool!

What an amazing experience for you and your daughter! :hi:

There is a book by Roger Fouts called "Next of Kin" which chronicles his work of teaching chimps American Sign Language. His work makes clear that chimps are intelligent, sentient creatures that can communicate their inner worlds to us. I have no doubt that gorilla was saying exactly what you thought she was! If you can pick up the book, I highly recommend it -- it will change your life.

[BurtWorm]

10. He's the guy who worked with Washoe, right?

I find animal sentience and intentionality completely fascinating.

I suppose someone could argue that this gorilla had two simultaneous itches on her nipples, maybe even because the doll stimulated her to itch somehow. But this gesture was accompanied by a searching look--or a look that resembled a human's searching sort of look, straight into my daughter's eyes. What could she have intended (if she intended anything) by her actions? It's a very interesting question.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

12. Yup, that's him!

It is incredibly fascinating, and brings up some very serious implications that people would just like to ignore.

I find it very funny that, over the years, science has had this list of things that supposedly seperated us from "them", the animals -- stuff like language, tool use, sentience. One by one, science is showing us there are species that share many if not all of those things with us.

Did you ever see the Robin Williams special with Koko? Incredibly funny but also fascinating.

[BurtWorm]

13. No, I didn't see that.

Maybe it's on Hulu or YouTube.

[Name removed]

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