Congo Bonobo! Ape Really Cuddling a Pet Mongoose? : Wildlife photographer of the year featuring #wildographer Christian Ziegler @christianziegler. #Repost “Today my picture of a bonobo is featured on BBC News to celebrate the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards 2022 - I’m excited, happy and humbled to be recognized in this year’s awards! I saw this young male bonobo petting a small mongoose one day when I was tracking a group in the forest near LuiKotale field station. He was holding the animal carefully, looking after it even as he climbed a nearby tree to eat fruit with the rest of the group. But this is likely not such an innocent relationship; bonobos occasionally eat meat and it is likely that this young mongoose was caught when its mother was hunted and eaten by the rest of the group. It would not be possible to capture these images without the support of Max Planck scientist Dr Barbara Fruth, who runs the LuiKotale Bonobo Project. Follow me for wildlife and nature photography. I am an outreach photographer working for Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior (MPI-AB), where I have been documenting both bonobo behavior and Dr Barbara Fruth's ongoing work at LuiKotale. I love being in this remote forest but it is physically challenging and tough on equipment with high humidity and low light. I captured this image with a Canon R5 at ISO 25,600 - this ability to capture animals in such low light has only become possible in the last two years. #Wildography #greatapes #bonobo #LiveForTheStory #congo #Canon R5 #WPY58 @MPI_animalbehav @photojournalism @nhm_wpy @canonemeapro @maxplanckgesellschaft (at Democratic Republic of the Congo) https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch9pgVUs0H0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=