Photo of the Day #775: Vomiting gorilla : Laelaps

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Laelaps is the blog of Brian Switek, a freelance science writer based in New Jersey. This blog frequently features his musings on paleontology, evolution, and the history of science. Switek also blogs for Smithsonian magazine's Dinosaur Tracking.

Switek's first book, Written in Stone, will be published on November 1, 2010 by Bellevue Literary Press.

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Photo of the Day #775: Vomiting gorilla

Category: Mammals • Photography • Primates
Posted on: November 27, 2009 9:34 AM, by Brian Switek

A western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) with an upset stomach, photographed at the Bronx Zoo.

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Comments

Accurately sums up my feelings about Black Friday. :-)

Posted by: Nick Gardner | November 27, 2009 11:00 AM

I saw the same animal doing this same behavior during my visit about two years ago. . .I was fortunate to have to anthropology grad students with me, who speculated that it was some sort of stress/displacement behavior.

Posted by: Andy | November 30, 2009 10:25 PM

He probably doesn't have an upset stomach. This is a common behavior of captive gorillas, referred to as R/R (regurgitation and reingestion). See Lukas (1999 Applied Animal Behaviour Science 63:237 for a relatively recent review.

Posted by: Scott | November 30, 2009 10:52 PM

He probably doesn't have an upset stomach. This is a common behavior of some captive animals, particularly gorillas (65% of gorillas in captivity demonstrate this behavior). It's referred to as R/R (regurgitation and reingestion) and has not been documented in wild gorillas, so probably has something to do with diet, boredom, or stress. See Lukas (1999 Applied Animal Behaviour Science 63:237 for a relatively recent review of this behavior.

Posted by: Scott | November 30, 2009 10:56 PM