By Matthew Cobb
Now this looks to me as though the baby gorilla is playing peekaboo. Any hard-noses out there want to come up with a different interpretation?
Video filmed in the Columbus Zoo.
h/t Ziya Tong
Two babies playing – one is human
September 1, 2015 • 11:00 am
It’s a standard war dance done by all gorillas when they encounter imperialists.
Makes me want to free the gorilla.
+1
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I just heard a news item. An animal rights group wanted the courts (NY?) to rule that chimps should be considered people and not kept in cages. The court dismissed the case.
Clearly the baby gorilla is practicing survival tactics. It’s an evolved response to human predation, gauging the reflexes of the child from behind the safety of the partition, all the while plotting escape and revenge.
The gorilla could be establishing himself as the dominate one over the kid by having the boy always react to what he does.
And if you do, you have to explain why it doesn’t apply equally well to the human.
My experience is that human kids that age do the seeking and adults do the hiding. I don’t recall a toddler initiating peek-a-boo,
Both of my kids did, but when a little younger than this child. They’d come up to me and try to cover my eyes. Which was annoying as I wear glasses that would usually get knocked off my face.
But I’m not convinced the gorilla is playing peek-a-boo. I think this exchange was started by the gorilla, and it is playing “chasey” around an obstacle, the tree-like upright of the window frame. This sort of behaviour is apparently quite common in gorillas.
Which one’s the kid & which one’s the gorilla again?
Our hairy cousins do play, it seems, so …
Not just our cousins – our distant relatives like to play as well. Canines and cats separated from us about 95 million years ago.
Has anyone ever researched whether behaviors, such as playing peek-a-boo, common among human infants are also common among gorillas?
If the infant gorilla is practicing survival tactics then isn’t it possible that practicing survival tactics is exactly what motivates these behaviors?
I read an article once that claimed that Bonobos in a zoo displayed a behavior similar to shaking one’s head “no”, in order to convey disapproval to infants and juveniles.
Bonobos spend so much time schtupping, I wasn’t sure they knew how to say “no.”
LOL. I know.
Every time I mention bonobos, someone will invariably mention how often they have sex.
Jealousy?
http://www.livescience.com/10718-gorillas-play-tag-humans.html
Press coverage of a study of gorillas playing tag. It’s thought it’s an important part of them learning to manage conflict in unequal situations.
Why would anyone think THOSE two species could be related?
I wasn’t going to call this out but I don’t want to risk being thought an idiot for what I wrote: I’m being sarcastic.
That’s just what I thought when I saw this — of course, the people who ignore the evidence from nearly identical genomes will misinterpret this video, too.
I love the gleeful look on the baby gorilla’s face.
Me too!
Its playing Peek-a-Boo , to get some relief from the boredom of being locked up I imagine, I can understand the need for some Animals to be in Zoos to preserve the Species , but surely we can give them Acres to run around in.