I was hoping to see some interactions among the gorillas, but during the hour I spent there were very few occasions when they communicated with each other in any manner. In general I can say that Nneka, the youngest (female) gorilla was the most active. She had energy to go around and around try to play, climb the rocks and the trees and so on. The others were resting most of the time at the relatively warm noon hour when I was there.

Considering that I haven’t seen much action I don’t have much to analyze. What I am particularly upset about is that I did not have a chance to see the famous chest-beating. I learned that this behavior is done by all gorillas and the either one or two open-fist hands are clapped against the chest. For the adult male this is a threat display.

I did see Nneka staring at Mkubwa, but I don’t think that it was an aggressive stare, more like a curious, exploratory one. According to one source I read when the sender has its eyes fixed on the receiver, the eyebrows are lowered, the head is angled down, and the lips are parted and pursed then this communicates aggression or annoyance. However I find it unlikely that I have witnessed this.

Pogo came to the visitor’s window, where people where looking at him from the same level. At this point I was at the other corner of the area so I didn’t see his face. Others have told me though that often the gorilla would imitate the humans. Visitors might think he is doing human like movements and would attribute this behavior to his human like qualities. What is more likely though that because of his intelligence he is capable and interested in imitation, but if it is a senseless human behavior he is mimicking then there is no significant meaning behind it.

Because there was no real conflict in that hour among them I didn’t see fear of display (open-mouth grimace: the mouth is wide open, the corners of the mouth are drawn back, the eyebrows are raised, the head is tilted back a little, and the eyes move back-and-forth), or light distress (pout face: the lips are pursed, mouth is slightly parted or compressed, and the eyebrows are raised), or play face (the mouth is open but not showing the teeth or gums), or threat display for potential predators (tense-mouth face: like staring but the gums and teeth are displayed having the lips curled back), or even dominance display (strutting walk: a rigid walk with arms bowed and the hair bristled so that the individual looks bigger.) Overall they seemed a pretty mellow group.

Right before I left the area Barney and Nneka got closer to the building one after the other and settled down its door. I could interpret this in two ways. Either they were getting ready for meal or that’s where they were expecting it to arrive for them. Or they were missing Shango, their brother, who according to a sign was in a separate”bachelor pad”. I can assume that this pad was somewhere in the building and his siblings knew about it.

All in all I had an enjoyable hour there, I am just sorry that not enough action happened for me to analyze.