GorillaSound

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 04 2009 | By: gorillasound

The other day in the forest, while we were following the gorillas we had an elephant following us! Fortunately we were in forest with
good trackers who are not scared of elephants and lead us away from it very smoothly. For the first two hours in the morning I was
following Mekome while Julia was following Kingo with the help of Samedi. At one point they hear some strange noise from the thicket
nearby and they went to see if it was a gorilla or something more dangerous. Samedi was in front and saw the big tasks of a very big
elephant coming towards the Ngluma tree were the Kingo’s group was feeding on. He immediately came back and told me and Bakanga of
the Njoku (elephant) presence. The gorillas tried to avoid the elephant too and traveled away from the tree. We could continue to follow
our focals until Julia and I switched trackers. While Julia was in front with her female, I was behind taking data with KIngo. We were
again at the base of another Ngluma tree where Kingo was finishing all fruits he found on the ground. We were sitting at 7 meters from
him, suddenly Kingo stopped to chew in order to hear some noise coming from behind us. Then he looked at us, then again in the direction
of the sound. He did this for five times at least. At the same time also Samedi was moving his head to hear and determine the origin and
cause of the noise. At the same time Samedi told me that was the elephant, we heard a big noise very close to us, we quickly turn back
and saw the big black elephant coming out from the ticket at less than 12 meters from where we were sitting. As silent as we could we
disappear in few seconds from the spot, leaving Kingo to deal with the Njoku! Unfortunately for us, we took the same path the elephant
had in mind to take, and he just followed us for at least half an hour! We managed to stay in contact with Kingo anyway. Only ones,
while trying to leave distance between us and our follower, we end up in front of KIngo and he had to cough grunts to let us know we
were just blocking his way. Gently Kingo avoided us and we kept working until we arrived to the other Ngluma tree where Julia and Kingo
females were during all this time. After less than 20 minutes we saw Bakanga and Julia coming to us with big eyes saying that the
elephant just appeared where they were and they had to leave since the gorillas were all on the tree and on the base there were just
them and the elephant!!

The Ngluma tree (Duboscia macrocarpa)

This tree is very beautiful. It can reach 35 meters height, its trunk is deeply wavy, the flowers are small and white and its leaves are
very green. The fruits are orange and fibrous with a strong and sweet smell when chewed. Like many other species in this forest type,
Ngluma is asynchronous; this means that each tree has fruits at different times, thus Ngluma fruits are found all year around in the
forest. It’s not a preferred gorilla fruits, but its availability makes this species an important food source for gorillas,
especially during those months in which other more succulent fruits are scarce. As you could imagine, this fruit is eaten by several
other animals, including other apes (chimps) and monkeys. Elephants seem to like it a lot too. Bantu and Ba’Aka population use the
fruit and the bark of this tree to cure cough. I personally tried an infusion of Mobei, Ngluma and other tree barks when I had an
annoying cough here at Mondika and I was very surprised by its immediate relief effect!