#Gorillas are big. Big boned, massively muscled and, well, portly. Just as people who drink a lot of beer develop a beer belly, gorillas eat so much vegetation they have a salad belly - a paunch so rounded that their tummy almost touches the ground when on all fours. Having said all that, you wouldn't expect them to be very good as trapeze artists - and yet this video shows a whole group of western lowland gorillas, young and old alike, descending from feeding 40m up in the canopy, swinging and hanging by the arms in a surprisingly agile way. Not as delicate as gracile bonobos, but pretty impressive nonetheless.
The tangled lianas and tree trunks provide a flexible climbing frame for #primates that makes filming challenging, and the cloud of sweat bees make a moving blur in front of the lens, but I have left this video un-edited so that what you see is just what happened. It was filmed on a visit to Mondika, just outside Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park​ in northern #Congo, where the Buka Group has been habituated for research and the occasional lucky visitor. This is why the gorillas were so accepting of my presence (and that of the expert trackers you can hear in the background) and why you can glimpse their way of life in this, my 91st #BrightenYourDay video to lift spirits in #Covid19 #lockdown.
For more info on #Mondika and the conservation of this beautiful, biodiverse forest, see https://congo.wcs.org/Wild-Places/Nouabale-Ndoki-National-Park.aspx