#shibani

Please rate this amazing compilation of Shabani being funny. I am curious about his behavior when he smacks another one of his troop; I'm guessing a female or non-dominant male. What is this? Is it playing?

Okay, first I am SO pleased to announce that in looking for information on the individuals in Shabani's troop, I found a MONKEY (and ape) FANDOM. my kind of people. Enjoy :)

From what I can tell, the adolescent male is coming to adulthood and is challenging Shabani's authority. We can see several moments in the video where Shabani gets chased and does the chasing. 7:20 shows Shubani reacting very strongly to the youngster (Kiyomasa?) displaying. Shabani bites the rope in front of him, and does a dramatic flop onto a nearby structure, and this is speculation, but it looked like frustration to me.

In the wild when a young male gorilla matures, he starts to make these displays and often must choose to either: leave the troop and make his own by attracting females to join him, challenge the dominant male and win authority, or stay with the group and wait until the dominant male starts to age and can be challenged and overpowered. In captivity, every effort is made to keep family members together as long as its beneficial to them so keepers will do their best to mitigate conflict when possible while also allowing natural social interaction.

The above video is 5 years old, Here's a more recent video showing tensions have calmed down- it seems Kiyomasa accepts his role in the troop from what we can see in a short video.