Huh, I went looking into this after reading this story and gorilla culture is interesting. Apparently, gorillas don't have a teaching culture (in comparison to us, I suppose) so during their long growth into adults they have to pick up a lot of cues by observation. This group, in particular, is a famous group called Pablo's group because when it was initially followed the leader was a Pablo, who was soon deposed by a chap named Cantsbee with Pablo remaining on in a non-dominant position. This kind of multi-male system allowed the troop to grow large, and it progressed for two more generations when this chap decided to neither take the Leave And Start Anew nor the Stay And Gently Takeover approach.
Apparently, female gorillas have an effectively large amount of freedom in this scenario and they'll switch tribes if they don't feel they're being effectively led. Lots of interesting stuff in here.
I have this personal theory that Cooperation Ability is the superpower of all living beings and that's how we get bigger things done. You know mitochondria and other cells cooperated and formed modern cells. As things aggregated more we got bigger and bigger beings till the point where we have nation-sized beings. And I notice that many successful societies have strong cultures of internal cooperation, though they might schism, e.g. Abrahamic religions. Anyway, I'm some way through Darwin's Cathedral (recommended to me by an LLM when I asked about this idea) and that book plus the story of this tribe have served to shove me firmly into the land of absolute belief in this idea haha!
pryelluw 6 hours ago [-]
Was not expecting the opportunity to imagine what a gorilla school would look like when I clicked on this thread. Thank you.
sandworm101 7 hours ago [-]
And did they mention what happens to the 80+% of males that dont make it to silverback status? Few like to talk about the darker sides of gorilla life.
As for teaching cultures, it isnt about IQ. Cats and dogs teach thier young, both wild and domesticated species.
internet_points 6 minutes ago [-]
and raptors teach their young to catch prey
Mistletoe 5 hours ago [-]
Since you didn’t elaborate I had to check. This doesn’t sound that bad?
You did not check, you let a text generator generate plausible sounding text.
sandworm101 1 hours ago [-]
Dude. That is an AI, disney-acceptable version of non-reality.
rexpop 7 hours ago [-]
Well, sure. There's more resources than any individual, or even individual bloodline could ever exploit alone.
Annihilate your competition, and you won't eat in lean years.
chakintosh 6 hours ago [-]
There is a Netflix documentary about Imfura, Gicurasi and the Pablo descendents narrated by David Attenborough. It just came out last month. Fantastic doc.
freefaler 45 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
jpster 3 hours ago [-]
> Imfura had his little group moving constantly, an understandable method to avoid other groups and the possible transfer of his females.
> [emphasis added]
But this apparently weakened their trust,
> which is essential for social cohesion.
How do the researchers know their trust was weakened by constant moving?
cycomanic 2 hours ago [-]
You emphasised the key word yourself, "apparently". And the proof is in the pudding, they left. Now the researchers didn't ask the females obviously, but they would have a lot of experience with the behaviour of the gorillas and know that the females don't like instability and unsureness of the leadership (hinted in the article), so the obvious conclusion is that the instability of moving around caused the females to loose trust.
Note I didn't ask the researchers either and am only deducing this from the text.
SilverElfin 8 hours ago [-]
Fascinating. How much of this is actually real and how much is people filling in a story that’s not necessarily reality but fits what we humans want to see? It feels very complex and I wonder how anyone can really know what’s happening with the social issues within these gorilla groups.
Also I wonder how much of Imfura’s aggression is due to his earlier trauma. From elsewhere on the same site, written in 2022:
> Imfura has a solid relationship with his father, dominant silverback Gicurasi, who himself had a close partnership with Imfura’s mother before her death. The bond between father and son has been strong since 2011, when then-2-year-old Imfura found himself trapped in a poacher’s snare. He was terrified, screaming in fear as the gorillas around him tried to free him. Our tracker Jean Bosco Ntrenganya was able to cut the rope loose, allowing Imfura to escape, but it took two days for Gicurasi to calm down enough a veterinary intervention to be done to remove the rope that was still attached to the young gorilla’s foot. Imfura survived the trauma and became closer to his father.
His father, who was the dominant male before the current dominant male, died last year. Perhaps it explains some of this?
gravatron 7 hours ago [-]
It's hard to believe any of it as the true reality after reading how much this article differed from the new Netflix documentary A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough that I watched a couple of weeks ago. The story they told involving these specific gorillas was quite bit different than the one described here.
sandworm101 7 hours ago [-]
The aggression could be from trauma, but aggressionn is also just part of being a male gorilla. They need to drive off rival males and, if they dont have a troop, depose or at least survive an encounter with a full silverback. Aggression is a useful tool in such situations.
Traubenfuchs 2 hours ago [-]
Stop chasing, start attracting: Hold on, take a brake, focus on yourself. Grow!
There might never be the perfect moment, but there can be many wrong moments.
Maybe we should teach Gorillas about psychotherapy or mental coaching?
brightbed 8 hours ago [-]
This was on Armchair Expert recently, Tara Stoinski. Great episode. Check it out!
CincinnatiMan 8 hours ago [-]
Hour and 17 minute long episode. Wow!
asdfman123 7 hours ago [-]
Relatable
Rendered at 07:16:16 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Apparently, female gorillas have an effectively large amount of freedom in this scenario and they'll switch tribes if they don't feel they're being effectively led. Lots of interesting stuff in here.
I have this personal theory that Cooperation Ability is the superpower of all living beings and that's how we get bigger things done. You know mitochondria and other cells cooperated and formed modern cells. As things aggregated more we got bigger and bigger beings till the point where we have nation-sized beings. And I notice that many successful societies have strong cultures of internal cooperation, though they might schism, e.g. Abrahamic religions. Anyway, I'm some way through Darwin's Cathedral (recommended to me by an LLM when I asked about this idea) and that book plus the story of this tribe have served to shove me firmly into the land of absolute belief in this idea haha!
As for teaching cultures, it isnt about IQ. Cats and dogs teach thier young, both wild and domesticated species.
https://g.co/gemini/share/b47f29959c49
Annihilate your competition, and you won't eat in lean years.
> [emphasis added] But this apparently weakened their trust,
> which is essential for social cohesion.
How do the researchers know their trust was weakened by constant moving?
Note I didn't ask the researchers either and am only deducing this from the text.
Also I wonder how much of Imfura’s aggression is due to his earlier trauma. From elsewhere on the same site, written in 2022:
> Imfura has a solid relationship with his father, dominant silverback Gicurasi, who himself had a close partnership with Imfura’s mother before her death. The bond between father and son has been strong since 2011, when then-2-year-old Imfura found himself trapped in a poacher’s snare. He was terrified, screaming in fear as the gorillas around him tried to free him. Our tracker Jean Bosco Ntrenganya was able to cut the rope loose, allowing Imfura to escape, but it took two days for Gicurasi to calm down enough a veterinary intervention to be done to remove the rope that was still attached to the young gorilla’s foot. Imfura survived the trauma and became closer to his father.
His father, who was the dominant male before the current dominant male, died last year. Perhaps it explains some of this?
There might never be the perfect moment, but there can be many wrong moments.
Maybe we should teach Gorillas about psychotherapy or mental coaching?