(koko’s full name was actually hanabiko, which means “fireworks child”, which is a reference to her birthday: the fourth of july!)
koko is a gorilla who knows a modified form of american sign language (and can understand spoken english as well) and uses it to communicate with her teacher and caregiver, francine “penny” patterson, and in 1984 she asked for a cat for her birthday! she was allowed to choose a kitten from an abandoned litter — she chose a tiny gray manx kitty and named him all ball. he was taken to see her in the evenings, and then later he would visit on his own. she treated him like the other gorillas treated their babies, and tolerated his biting without any aggression. here’s her and her beloved ball:
later all ball escaped from the zoo and got run over by a car, sadly. koko was very sad about it, but later in 1985 she got two new manx kittens, lipstick and smoky! here’s her playing with lipstick:
and here’s her with smoky!
in 2015 for her birthday, koko picked out two more kittens and named them miss black and miss grey!
koko turns 46 today! she also understands object displacement, has passed the mirror test, has relayed personal memories, can talk about language, has used language deceptively, has used false statements humorously, and has invented new signs to talk about things she doesn’t know the sign for (for example she didn’t know the sign for ring, but combined the signs for “finger” and “bracelet” to convey the same meaning)! these are all things that show a more developed degree of understanding than is usually associated with primates that aren’t humans.
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