A three-way gorilla poop fight was caught on video recently at the San Francisco Zoo, but don’t worry about the oversized slab of alpha gorilla that was under attack. The two much smaller gorillas taking random poop potshots at the big guy couldn’t really injure anything except his dignity.
The video below is short but sweet, and it’s worth taking a few seconds to watch the show for yourself.
According to videographer L00kBh1ndYou: “I was recording the little gorilla throwing dirt at the alpha male when all of the sudden another random gorilla decided to join in…but not with dirt…”
Yum, yum.
And it isn’t the first time that a gorilla was caught flinging feces. I’m told by a former vet tech that slinging the s*** is a popular way for the animals to communicate their displeasure.
Maybe so, but it can make a real problem for gorillas in a captive situation. In March, a blogger for a site called Chimp Trainer’s Daughter published a long story about Ndume, a 31-year-old gorilla that she describes as famous talking gorilla Koko’s “rejected paramour.”
The troubled animal failed at two different zoos because of his rude habit of flinging gorilla poop and even regurgitated food. He was born in captivity at Cincinnati Zoo and is not suitable for return for the wild since he isn’t, in fact, a wild animal.
As of March, Ndume had a home at California’s Gorilla Foundation, and he is reported to have mellowed considerably over the years. These days, he only flings poop once in awhile, when he’s feeling stressed.
However, an anonymous caregiver added that Ndume may fling only rarely but when he does, he hits what — or who — he aims at.
Have you ever seen a gorilla poop fight?
[Western lowland gorilla photo by Kabir Bakie via Wikimedia Commons]
