Disney World guests recorded video footage of gorillas inside their enclosure. The gorillas found a small snake slithering around a stack of hay, and they attempted to remove it while panicking.
The incident occurred last week, and the video was uploaded to social media, immediately going viral on TikTok. The user who recorded the footage titled the post "Gorilla VS Snake" and showed the group of gorillas circling the reptile, hesitant to touch it.
Curious Gorillas
The video has since garnered more than one million views and delighted park guests as the largest gorilla eventually joined the fray. One park personnel could be heard in the background saying that the ape species are similar to humans in their curious nature.
Guests laughed after seeing one of the gorillas running off when the snake lunges towards the large animal. Another animal could be seen beating its chest while a third approached, curious to the incident taking place, People reported.
In a separate incident, scientists have observed the first occurrence of chimpanzees in the wild attacking and killing gorillas in unprovoked assaults.
Animal experts watched as dozens of chimps at Loango National Park in Gabo approached a group of gorillas, expecting them to be docile and relaxed. Despite the usual playfulness between the two species, the recent incident took a turn for the worse when the smaller animals conducted frequent vicious attacks.
During a press release, Lara M. Souther, the lead author of the study, said that her team first noticed chimpanzees screaming and initially thought it was from a typical encounter between two different communities of chimps. However, when they heard chest beats, which is a common display characteristic for gorillas, they discovered that five gorillas were being attacked by the group of chimpanzees, which was first observed in 2019.
The group of researchers included individuals from Osnabruck University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. They published their findings in the journal Nature on Monday.
Chimpanzees Versus Gorillas
The researchers recorded two separate encounters, which lasted 52 and 79 minutes, where chimpanzees grouped together and attacked the gorillas unprovoked. The gorillas, consisting of a silverback and adult females, moved to defend themselves and their offspring. The adult gorillas were able to escape the encounter but failed to save their two infants, which were left and killed, CNN reported.
Tobias Deschner, a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, said the team's observations showed the first evidence of chimpanzees and their leather presence on gorillas. He added they wished to investigate the factors that led to the chimps' surprisingly aggressive behaviors.
Simone Pika, a cognitive biologist at Osnabruck University, said that interactions between chimpanzees and gorillas have so far been relatively peaceful. She noted that while both species are territorial and violent, they usually conduct aggression within their species. Pika said both species were previously seen foraging trees together peacefully and sometimes have playful interactions.
The group said that more research was needed to determine the factors that contributed to the unprovoked, aggressive behavior and interactions between the two species, Fox News reported.
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