Underblog.co.uk

My primate obsession has got a bit out of hand, so I’ve decided to create a seperate category called Monkeynews, where I can write about our hairy cousins to my heart’s content.

Koko, the “talking” gorilla, used american sign language to tell her handlers that she had bad toothache. An appointment was made for a dental operation and, since a full anesthetic was required, the opportunity was taken to give her a head-to-toe medical exam. Koko insisted on meeting her specialists before the procedure, according to abcnews:

They crowded around her, and Koko, who plays favorites, asked one woman wearing red to come closer. The woman handed her a business card, which Koko promptly ate.

Koko, 33, was given a clean bill of health. She knows over 1000 signs.

Last Sunday, London Zoo were offering a 2 for 1 ticket deal for red-heads. The special offer was to celebrate the birth of Laa Laa, a criminally cute Francois Langur monkey. Monkeys of the species are born with bright ginger fur to help their parents to keep an eye on them and turn black after a few months.

Finally, in May a mountain gorilla in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda gave birth to twins, one male and one female. They are only the third ever set of twins born to the endangered species to be recorded, and it is the first time that both twins have survived past a month.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 12th, 2004 at 05:08 and is filed under Monkeynews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.