This was originally supposed to be a simple ethological experiment we planned to carry out as part of our webcast from the Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon.
The plan was was follows: members of our expedition would place a melon and a ball of similar size and colour in the outer enclosure. All of us expected the situation to develop in the same way as similar experiments unfolded in the zoo in Prague - the melon would be snatched by dominant silverback Arno, who would not share the treat until changing his mind. However, expectation may be one thing and reality quite another. Arno ignored the melon and grasped the ball instead without hesitation. He knew it was not edible because he neither smelled nor tasted it. He started running around the enclosure wildly, sending us a message that game is equally important for him as food - so important that he preferred it to enjoying an extraordinary delicacy. We take it as another proof of similarities and close relation between apes and humans.
It is very interesting to watch Arno play with the ball. It seems that the dominant male tries to provoke the other members of the troop to try and take the ball from him. He then enjoys his ability to weather any attacks and keep the ball in his arms. Arno surely had not seen people play such a game. He must have devised the rules himself. And we can only marvel at how similar the rules are to rugby. Naturally, the gorillas did not have a goal, i.e. some tangible aim of the game. They did not have teams, either. In fact, Arno played against anyone who dared face hi. As you can seem, Arno used similar manoeuvres to dodge the opponents and held the ball in a similar manner as we can see in rugby. It seems it was a kind of prototypical game common to all of us primates. People only developed it a little further.
Enjoy a video capturing the action sans commentary. Cheer for the gorillas!
16.11.2009 Twiggs was born in the wild in Cameroon around the year 1997. She and another female gorilla, Brighter, was smuggled across the border to Nigeria as infants to be sold as pets on the locale pet marked.
09.11.2009 When Pitchou was very small, she was brought to Hotel Ilomba in Kribi to be sold, after her mother had been killed by hunters. She stayed there for three days, until the hotel owners could no longer bare to watch her suffer. The family donated her to the LWC.
02.11.2009 Chella came to Limbe Wildlife Centre when he was only two years old. He was found in the back of a bush-taxi sitting on his dead mother. Wildlife officials confiscated him and kept him three weeks before bringing him to the Wildlife Centre.
21.09.2009 Adjibolo came to Limbe Wildlife Centre when she was only about 6 months old. She was confiscated by senior civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr. Adjibolo, from a hunter who tried to sell her.
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