h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is an excellent piece. I remember Koko from years ago in National Geographic and being fascinated by her story. I wondered about the sadness of holding such an intelligent creature in captivity. (I would think the same for any zoo animal).

The other thought is, how does Koko know what gorillas do? If you took a human baby away from it's natural family and transported it to another culture you would not be able to find out about the mores of the culture it came from by asking it anything when it was older.

Are the taboos about incest provable?

I think the trouble with the proof of incest being recognised in gorilla society is to find another 'talking' gorilla to substantiate it.

Koko did live with her parents and the other gorillas at the zoo for her first year of life - what she learned then I couldn't guess at, she does however watch a lot of television - I suppose it is possible she learned that incest is not a good thing from there, and looked at her relationship with Micheal like that of a brother. Perhaps she watched too much Jerry Springer.

Thanks for the kind comments Vestboy.

Do you think she understood much of the TV she watched - even if it was Jerry Springer?

I get the feeling that a lot of interpretation is put on her psychology by her close human friends. That is not to say that they didn't understand her better than anyone else in the world, but maybe they put too much of a burden on her to represent Gorilla culture and view of the world when she had only been part of it for a year.

I really don't know Vestboy, she is very intelligent and can express herself - her likes, dislikes and wants very clearly.

She is only one of quite a group of communicating great apes in various projects around the world. There is even an internet project (Peter Gabriel is involved if I remember correctly) which is pressing for personage for the great apes on the basis that they have done enough now to prove they are 'people' too. There are communicating orang utans, bonobos and chimpanzees - all of them showing understanding, reasoning and intelligence, so I suspect it is more a case of Koko being a trailblazer and in 50 years time we'll look back and think - what were we doing treating these creatures like 'animals'.



PS there is also a project where dolphins have taught their researchers to fetch a frisbee.

Fizzy, another one of your great entries on the FP.
Can't wait for the