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

If Mountain Gorillas are the closest relatives I have, what about my sister, mother and father? Or is that an open goal question?

I wouldn't dare comment; I've never met your mother, sister or father...

Actually, I think the word "almost" is the key one here. It's all relative. Probably.

luv
Frankie

Well anyway, it does end up with all of us having up to 650 cousins!
And Adams thinks it few?

Oh, and imagine family dinners...
Grandma: "Well how are you doing in school young man?"
And cousin dearest answers "GRRRHMMF OOGA BOOGA" and slams his fist thru your coffetable, eating the fern as he goes.

And think of buying Christmas presents...
"We can't get them ALL bundles of leaves...but I can't think of anything else they'd want. But we got them leaves last year..."
Then someone suggests buying some Just For Men for the silverbacks, and it degenerates from there.

Having said all that, none of this would be the biggest problem. Because if the gorillas are coming to the family reunion, then so must all the chimps...including the bonobos. And you don't want to know what they'll get up to...

Yeh

I think bonobos would be considered the black sheep of my family tree.

Although knowing what we know, they would have that exciting wanna-try-too feel around them just like uncle Sam, the guy of whom no one ever knows what he's up to. That black sheep comes-around-once-a-year-or-so who always has these wild stories top tell but who's looked at by Mom as someone she only trusts as far as the front door.

Becasue what happens when your uncle Bonobo leaves out the fornt door is just too coo for the zoo...

As Chris Rock says, "There's always one uncle who your mother tells you to stay away from. "Uncle Johnny's here? WHERE ARE THE KIDS? WHERE ARE THE KIDS!?!?"."

Like that.

Actually, that's a bit unfair. I think bonobos are great. As I've said elsewhere, so I won't bother repeating it here.

(Suffice it to say, I think we could learn a lot from them...)

Think of it. We have the 69 position... they have positions one to 69,
and it's so natural to them that they don't even need those numbers to clarify what they mean.

Bonobo one: Oooh aaga eeteet ?
Bonobo two just does what needs to be done.

Just
like
that.

Bonobos are too cool to talk about.
Mountain gorillas, though, get an entire banner dedicated to them.
Sad though. You have this deeply depressed, almost extinct gorilla who could surely be cheered up if he new that there were about seven hundred and fifty others just as depressed as he is, and the poor hairy frood can't read.

sigh

Whoa!

I just checked the banner and I saw that it's not seven hundred fifty Gorillas in the world, it's six hundred and fifty. I was positive that it was seven hundred the last time I checked (which was when I phrased my Question.

They didn't... they couldn't...

one hundred gorillas dead

in two days.

Doug, Diane, we gotta DO something!

God, just think. An entire species driven to extinction because of an accounting error...

By the way, did you know the Latin name of the gorilla? It's brilliantly unimaginative. It is..."Gorilla gorilla". There's even a subspecies called "Gorilla gorilla gorilla". That must have been a real last-minute-before-the-deadline decision...just imagine...

Scene 1. Int. Night.

Several people around a table. It is littered with empty bottles. Smoke-filled atmosphere.

"Can we order a pizza?"
"Yeah, I'll have...NO! We've got to find a Latin name for these bloody gorillas. We've got a press conference tomorrow..."
"I've got a complete blank. I can't think of a f***ing thing..."
"I can't even speak Latin."
"Come on, there's got to be something we can call them!"
"How about "Biggus Hairyus bastardus"?"
"Oh, don't be so stupid, Kevin!"
"Go f*** yourself."
"You too...look, we've got to think!"
"Why can't we do what we did with the Killer Whales? We got one name, then repeated it. Orca orca. Easy."
"Because we haven't even got one sodding name yet!"
"Oh, look...why don't we just call them "Gorilla"?"
"Is that Latin?"
"Yeah. Means "Gorilla"."
"Great! What about the other name?"
"Do what Alan just said. Reapeat it."
"So...they're called "Gorilla gorilla". Which is Latin for "gorila gorilla". Just in case anybody really isn't certain that they've got a gorilla."
"That's right."
"Now can we get a pizza?..."

These taxonomers sure know how to party.

It's Orcinus orca.

=)

Gorillas are called orcinus orca?

Now i really want my silver back.

The northern mountain gorilla is gorilla gorilla gorilla.

Plus, the buffalo is bison bison.

And my personal favourite:- the wren aka "troglodytes troglodytes"
Although how a sweet little bird with a sticking-up tail got to be doubly known as a cave dweller beats me.