GorillaSound

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 21 2009 | By: gorillasound

We were in the forest with the Kingo’s group when suddenly Kingo started to behave really strangely! He run towards his females and me and Dona (we were following Ugly), then looked up, and then run again in another direction. His fur was all up and his body seemed huge, but he wasn’t aggressive and scary as he can get! Anyway, it was clear that another male was around. Dona and I run where the other team was, to be able to understand what was going on. From the big tree of Bokoko we saw some gorillas running on the branch, we looked better and we saw another male with his female trying to get down. Kingo displayed and chest beat twice, then he stayed still at 5 meters from the tree from which the other two gorillas were coming down. We were just behind Kingo, let’s say 15 meters from the tree. The one female came down very slowly, looked at us but didn’t react at all. She slowly came down, followed by his big silverback. Kingo was still looking them coming down. The other male was huge, very similar to Kingo, same big head and butt. Kingo and he were really physical identical!!!Kingo let him came down and with his female the two disappeared in the forest with no rush. After that Kingo started chest beating for several times, but the other male didn’t reply. Kingo didn’t stop until, from far away the other male replied. As soon as he heard him (and potentially also understand that he was not anymore a potential danger for his group) he started to walk and eat as anything had happened. The four of us, who witnessed this interaction, were completely confused. We never saw not habituated females be so calm close to us, and I’ve never seen Kingo so close (5m) from another male being so cool. We hypothesized two scenarios: 1) the two silverbacks were too similar in body size and too close that any physical encounter could have been very dangerous for both males, thus Kingo left him came down and go away without chase him; 2) The two males knows each other (why not half-brother!) and that’s could explain why Kingo displays were less convincing than normally are and why he showed much more tolerance than in other occasions. The stereotyped behavior reestablishes the needed distance between groups, I would say declaring Kingo the King of the match, since they continued to feed bokoko fruits at the tree, while the small group left the area! Genetic analyses would be extremely useful to determine the degree of relatedness between Kingo and the other male (or even Kingo with the other female!).

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 16 2009 | By: gorillasound

Today, there was sex on the air. When we found Kingo, he was sending sex calls for her fans to come close. Two of the females, Emily and Fini, on her harem were in estrus on the same days. For today, Emily and Fini replaced Kusu and Ekendi and took the job for being Kingo’s shadow. Each time when Kingo started to call either for Fini or Emily, whatever they were doing, they answered each call by approaching him. The thing I realize is most of the time after the call, just before the females approach, Kingo lays down and acts like he is not interested on them (that’s totally an unscientific assumption). When Fini or Emily seen their man is uninterested on copulation, they kindly shake the nearest branches around, always eyes on Kingo, swing their body from one side to the other, eyes on Kingo. And if all these don’t work, they put small leaves to their mouth for just being noisy, in my opinion just for taking the attention of their sleeping beauty. If Kingo still continue to ignore them by acting like he is sleeping (eyes half open by the way :), the females leave no distance between them and him. They place their face above his face from a certain distance and swing their body with their eyes fixed on his’. Anyhow, if we come to the story of today, Kingo had two females to keep content. Kingo was copulated with Fini right after we arrived and for the next two hours, Fini and Emily were keeping their close distance to Kingo, of course, for not missing their chance on him. In the hierarchical order of females (Roberta will be more sure on that after her research, so again that’s my opinion), Emily is the least stone (not for my heart though :)). Even though Fini is the newest female, she is a tough one and she can fight with anyone even Mama. So Fini was the one who approaches more to Kingo every time he called. But Kingo has his own preferences as every other man around. So when Fini answered his last sex call, he was lying on his back and acting totally uninterested. If Fini had our words to speak, she was begging him for it more than half an hour. She was swinging her body together with the vegetation she was in but Kingo continued to his fake sleep. After half an hour, he woke up, startled Fini and totally ignored her presence. Fini sat back and watched his man disappearing from his side. Then I knew, he was looking for Emily and he knew where Emily was and why she couldn’t dare to answer his calls on sex in the presence of Fini. So after ten minutes of walking, he found her. Once again, he sent his sex call even though Emily was already less than 5m apart (which make me ask if the sex calls were for the ones who he is planning to copulate or for the whole family) and he started to eat the leaves around. Emily sat and waited for Kingo. But Emily was not alone. Mekome, the one who is in love with Kingo, sat right next to Emily after Kingo’s call. Kingo slowly stand up, pass Mekome and softly grumbled for Emily. When Emily took the signal, she put herself under Kingo, hugged him both with her hands and feet and started to copulate face to face. During the process, both Emily and Kingo were calling. I assume with that calls, Mekome went crazy (OK, that’s my dramatization again but Mekome really went crazy). She started to grunt Emily. When they were copulating, Mekome was right next to them and ready to fight with Emily. When they finished their copulation, Mekome run aggressively on Emily and made her leave the place where Kingo was laying on his back now. When her love was falling in to asleep, she just sat there and waited. Emily was behind the bushes and I could still see her eyes watching Kingo on the ground. When Kingo got up and started to walk, Mekome tried to offer herself to him. She approached him really closely, turned her back, her eyes fixed on Kingo as well, and stroked his arms and chest softly with her back. Kingo just paused for a sec or two, we were all so curious if he was going to do it, but as expected he refused her. I don’t know if Mekome is trying to protect her place on the hierarchy by using sex or she just wanted to have another baby even though she is a beautiful mother of three years old Ekendi. But in any condition, as Ekendi still dependent on her milk, Kingo knew he cannot copulate with Mekome but for Mekome, she was either trying to stick on her high chair on the hierarchy of hers or she was just jealous on her man (that’s what I like to think). Or even better the reason behind her behaviour is not one or the other, all is connected. And who knows maybe the reason behind our jealousy has the same connection as well….

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 11 2009 | By: gorillasound

Yesterday we left the camp knowing that it was going to be a wet-swampy day! As soon as we arrived where we left the group the day before and started to follow their early morning traces, we understood that our suspicions were becoming reality. Straight line towards east (the swamp are located on the east part of the Kingo’s home-range), which means a good walk in the swamp!
When the group takes this direction, females are normally in front of Kingo walking and vocalizing happily! All individuals walk close to each other (but the exception is the rule!), and feeding is mostly absent. Kingo stops few times just to get a snack. This time, as soon as they reached the Bemba forest before the forest inundated, the group members spread around (even more than 100 meters between individuals), each of them scratching the soil to get the little rhizomes. When all the adults were busy, Ekendi and Kusu were playing like crazy, running and spinning on the noisy bemba leaves covering the ground. Then, maybe for 2-3 minutes, they become serious again and started to scratch the soil imitating the adults. When they finally found water, their happiness was huge and they came back playing, running, and splashing their hands, feet and head in the water!
I was following Mekome while Aylin was with Kingo behind (more than 50 meters away). We were close to where the forest inundated starts, when Emilie and Fini appeared, running towards us. After few seconds, another male barked from the direction they were running from. Kingo arrived immediately, bigger than ever, and went right were the two females were coming from. Then he pushed his females to walk toward south. After walking 30 meters, Kingo finally chest beat back to the other male. The two males exchanged three or four chest beat, before Kingo’s group entered the swamp.
Following Mekome we arrived before Kingo to the big Ndima Bai, a big clearing of aquatic vegetation and mud. Mekome was eating very fast, as well as Emilie and Ugly. From where we were we couldn’t see Mama or Fini, but we heard some noise coming from another small bai nearby. Mama came to eat in the same bai of Mekome, Kingo, Ugly and Emilie just for few minutes, to then leave again for her interminable walks. We spent two hours there, during which the gorillas eat non-stop and flees bite us everywhere. Around 11 Kingo decided that they spent enough time there and vocalizing walked out of the swamp, followed by all members of his group. They left the swamp, traveling close to each other and surprisingly fast, until they reached a nice place, full of leaves and Marantaceae species, where finally they could rest. When the group was sleeping, the afternoon team arrived and we walked back to the camp with our cloths wet until the knee (we consider a success if we come back with our underwear dry!).
Here are some pictures showing: the clearing, Ekendi drinking water and approaching his mother to suck milk, and ugly eating congwasika with her infant completely wet!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 03 2009 | By: gorillasound

After many stories about Kusu and Ekendi, here are some scenes of them playing crazily!

The bigger is Kusu (his air brow is straight), while the little one is Ekendi (his air brow is rounded, his eyes are close to each other, and on his but he as still the white fur spot, which is disappearing in Kusu), I hope you enjoyed them as we do everyday in the forest!

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