Koko the Gorilla, especially of interest to Sharla and Pacfan

[Kev]

Gorilla Foundation - Gorilla Intelligence and Behavior

Found this really interesting. Koko is a female gorilla born in 1971 that has the most advanved vocabulary of any non human in the world.

She knows over 2000 spoken human words and has a sign language vocabulary of over a 1000 signs.

There's a few youtube vids of her as well which I'll add shortly

[Kev]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5RrORtDZuQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCMc9...eature=related

I've always believed, and still do that there is a qualatitive difference between humans and animals, but this is certainly intriguing.

According to her website she has an IQ of around 75-90 with 100 being normal for a human

This makes her officially smarter than TysonBruno

The second video takes about 4 minutes to start properly but its absolutely fascinating.

I challenge anyone to watch it through and not well up at least a little bit.

I want a friend like this :-)

[Kev]

The second video has some fascinating stuff about Michael a male silverback who communicates through paintings.

He even named his own paintings

Amazing how intelligent they are, really suprised me.

It's hard to deny they have some form of consciousness. I wonder how it compares to ours?

[Sharla]

That's georgeous! I love her facial expressions when she's getting spun around on the chair! I've only had time to watch the highlights and not the whole thing yet but it's a really good fond Bilbo!

Really I don't understand the human need to believe that we're a superior species. Obviously all species have their strengths and weaknesses. Our strengths are obvious but in a way we have our weaknesses too.

I think many animals are smarter than people would give them credit for. This is going to sound really sappy but one of my jobs when I was a kid on the farm was to rear orphaned lambs.

Unfortunately many didn't survive because they needed their mother's milk for immunity. As for the ones that did they really would follow me all over the place. They learnt to climb through fences the same way I did so we couldn't keep them in paddocks the same way we could the others.

Once one of them was in a paddock and couldn't get to me bacause there was a big muddy pit thing between us. All I had to do was point the way around it a few times and the lamb followed my directions.

Sheep are meant to be stupid but really I think there are different types of intelligence. Humans have a few types, some animals can develop those to an extent and I think they have some types we don't have too.

[Kev]

That's georgeous! I love her facial expressions when she's getting spun around on the chair! I've only had time to watch the highlights and not the whole thing yet but it's a really good fond Bilbo!

Really I don't understand the human need to believe that we're a superior species. Obviously all species have their strengths and weaknesses. Our strengths are obvious but in a way we have our weaknesses too.

I think many animals are smarter than people would give them credit for. This is going to sound really sappy but one of my jobs when I was a kid on the farm was to rear orphaned lambs.

Unfortunately many didn't survive because they needed their mother's milk for immunity. As for the ones that did they really would follow me all over the place. They learnt to climb through fences the same way I did so we couldn't keep them in paddocks the same way we could the others.

Once one of them was in a paddock and couldn't get to me bacause there was a big muddy pit thing between us. All I had to do was point the way around it a few times and the lamb followed my directions.

Sheep are meant to be stupid but really I think there are different types of intelligence. Humans have a few types, some animals can develop those to an extent and I think they have some types we don't have too.

Yeah it is suprising to me how intelligent other animals can be.

Reading about Koko on Wikipedia she actually had her own cats as pets and was involved in several sexual harrassment lawsuits because she kept demanding to see her handler's nipples

The idea that serious scientific research into communication with gorilla's ended with the gorilla signing 'Show me your tits' is not only absolutely hilarious but does suggest they may be more 'human' than we realise

Koko (gorilla - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

[Sharla]

So you'e saying Koko is a lesbian! I see what you mean by more human than we might think. I think most people with pets will agree that they all have their own personalities. Where else does that come from if not their minds? How can a dog have a personality but not emotions or thought?! I don't think it can!

[Kirkland Laing]

but does suggest they may be more 'human' than we realise

Apes have 98.something % the same DNA as me and you do. To put that in perspective female humans only have 97.something % the same DNA as me and you. Which explains a lot, doesn't it ladies ?

[pacfan]

Sorry about that, Bilbo. I saw the title of this thread just now while browsing through Dizaster's Zen thread; you made this thread when I was still boxing-only guy here, which simply means I never visited this hidden area before.

Ya, I know about Koko, he's a pretty famous chimp. Actually some animals are pretty intelligent. I've got 9 cats myself and me and Deanrw have been having some conversation going here for some time now about them. I think cats have esp too. I've got 9 cats home and observed that some of them can actually read our minds - at least they seem to. Once, one of my cats, a somewhat aggressive and wild type who never allows himself to be cuddled, viciously attacked one of our gentle ones, and out of anger, I blurted out I'll never speak (oops, well ya I do kinda talk to my cats, lol) to him again! And strangely, that cat later jumped on my lap for the first time and sat there for several minutes - and he usually never likes anyone cuddle or even touch him. I just couldn't believe it then, but strange things do happen sometimes.

[Scrap]

We are the only Animal that cant comunicate with other Animals. So are we the dumb ones.