Gorilla Kingdom

I was at work on one of my last days at the zoo, on a retail outlet near the gorilla enclosure, and was fortunate enough to be able to watch them for a large part of the morning. It was whilst watching one of them drink from a water bottle with such human skill, I realised I have seen humans frequenting McDonald's drinking with less civility than these beautiful creatures.

Unfortunately I couldn't get a picture of the gorillas drinking from the water bottles (I was meant to be working, after all)

That was when it occurred to me that it is only due to some bizarre twist of genetic fate (and I'm not going to pretend to know all the scientific details), that they were in the enclosure with us taking photos of them, rather than vice versa. If you look closely into their eyes, I mean really look into their eyes, you begin to believe that they are aware of it too. I don't want this to become one of those life-changing-revelation type things, but before this I had never found gorillas to be that fascinating. Having spent a whole morning watching them (it was a quiet day) I genuinely have a new found respect for them.

 (More zoo photos to follow shortly)