APE ANTICS

The Whirling World of primate play

- Rachel Kehoe

Feel the grass under you as you start rolling down the hill. You’re turning over and over, the world swirling into a kaleidoscope of green, blue, and sunlight. With every roll you can’t help but giggle. Finally, you come to a stop at the bottom, the sky and trees still whirling around you. It takes a moment for everything to settle. But that feeling of joy remains.

You’re not alone in loving this dizzying experience. Our evolutionary primate cousins— gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and bonobos— are in on the fun, too.

 A Dive Into Ape Twirls

Why do apes spin? This question first captured Marcus Perlman’s attention in 2011 after watching a viral video of Zola. At the time, Zola was a gorilla at the Calgary Zoo in Alberta, Canada, and he loved to spin. In 2017, Perlman saw Zola again, this time playfully spinning in a kiddie pool at the Dallas Zoo in Texas. Perlman is a cognitive scientist and lecturer in linguistics at the University of Birmingham in England. He studies the behaviors and communication methods of great apes, especially gorillas.