The female usually backed away, stayed away, or resisted the approach by the male gorilla. The effectiveness of play faces alone, gestures alone, and gestures with play faces in achieving contact with the female was also examined. Three degrees of visual attention groups were found: a high-visual-attention group that consisted of silent head and limb gestures, a medium-visual-attention group of audible gestures, and a low-visual-attention group of tactile-close gestures alone. Although about 30 different types of gestures were catalogued for this gorilla group, nine of the male gorilla's gestures were focused on. Tanner and Byrne's study (1996) focused on one male and one younger female in a group of captive gorillas at the San Francisco Zoo. I hypothesized that the environment affects the development of culture and therefore gestures other than species-typical gestures would be different in studies done at different locations. Tomasello (2003), as these are the only studies that have focused on the gestural repertoire of captive gorillas. The second objective of this study was to compare the gestures in this group of gorillas to those seen in studies by J.E. I hypothesized that younger gorillas would perform more gestures than older gorillas, and that tactile gestures would be performed more frequently than visual and auditory gestures. Once the gestural repertoire of this group is known, more inferences about species-typical gestures can be made, as well as changes in gesturing due to age. There have never been any studies of gestural communication done at the Bronx Zoo, and in order to have a full understanding of the gestural repertoire of a species, the gestures of that particular species must be analyzed. The first goal of the present study was to identify the full gestural repertoire of one group of western lowland gorillas at the Bronx Zoo. These groups also contain several females with offspring, who typically remain together while moving and resting. Chest beating is seen in all gorillas and is used by the dominant male, the silverback, to scare away intruders, but is also used during play.įigure 1: Shana claps after placing a branch on his neck. Gorillas live in groups that contain up to 30 individuals and are usually dominated by a single adult male. The western lowland gorilla is the largest of all primates and is primarily terrestrial. Although the majority of studies of nonhuman primates have focused on vocal communications, very few have concentrated on gestural communications. If one gesture is received falsely, another gesture may be made in order to make the individual's desire or need more understandable. The way an action is received by one social partner determines the next action. When communicating through non-vocal gestures, the meaning of the information is constructed through action between social partners (King 2004). The way the receiver uses this information determines how the primate responds and therefore regulates the action that will follow (Bradbury and Vehrencamp 1998). Information is exchanged between communicative partners through auditory, olfactory, tactile, and visual signals. It has been shown that western lowland gorillas ( Gorilla gorilla ) use gestures as a means of communication (Tanner 1998, 2004 Tanner and Byrne 1993, 1996 Pika 2007 and Pika, Liebal, and Tomasello 2003). Without another human being in sight, I knew that this was where I was meant to be. I can anticipate what a gorilla's going to do, and they're purely motivated." During the summer of 2007, I stepped into the Congo Gorilla Forest exhibit at the Bronx Zoo and soon came to realize that I feel the same way. Dian Fossey once said, "I feel more comfortable with gorillas than with people. As I take out my video camera, all four gorillas continue to watch me, and a large male, the silverback, joins them. To my left I see another gorilla, who has just finished making what appears to be a nest, clapping. In the corner, underneath the shade of a tree, lies a baby, held in a warm embrace by his mother. I am standing face to face with some of the most magnificent and intelligent creatures in the world. I hear a few more bangs and see that three more gorillas have come to the window, eagerly looking to see who has come to visit them. I turn and see a small gorilla pressed against the window, looking at me. Table 1: One group of gorillas at the Bronx Zoo as of September, 2007.Īs I walk past the window, I hear a loud bang coming from my right.
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