GorillaSound

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 14 2009 | By: gorillasound

The other day was Emilie’s turn. Following her is not always easy and never relaxing! She walks incessantly, moving so rapidly from one spot to the next that if you are not always ready to run you could easy lose her. Anyway, we were following her among the rest of the group, who was sleeping, while I saw Ekendi approaching the mother (as always whimpering), and I decided to stay and look how was going on between mother and son. He went directly toward her breast, as a response Mekome aggressively bit him. Ekendi, as well as it happened last time started to scream and scream. At that point, Kingo who was sleeping less than 10m away vocalized, Mekome immediately put her arm around Ekendi, who stopped screaming. After few seconds, Mekome bit him again, but looking to Kingo embraced him again. She did it again another time before Ekendi accepted to just sit close to her. It was really funny to see the entire scene. At the end Mekome stood up and walked away, leaving the little Ekendi dreaming about his milk. During the same days and the following days we still have observed Ekendi and Kusu breastfed by their mothers. We have impression that the frequency (the number of time we see them suckling) decreased but the time when they are allowed to get milk increased. We are now starting to collect same data specifically on them to have an idea about how young gorillas get weaned and how their social and ecological behavior changes consequently.