The gorilla that walks like a man

A rather intimidating video shows a Silverback gorilla strolling about on his hind legs evokes the sci-fi film, The Planet of the Apes

Ambam, the Silverback gorilla, first learned to balance upright and then mastered a human-like gait. Photo: Screen shot

The video: Ambam, a 21-year-old Silverback gorilla at Britain's Port Lympne Wild Animal Park, has startled his keepers and the internet by teaching himself to walk upright like a human. A short video of the brawny, 6-foot-tall Ambam strutting his stuff with purpose has quickly racked up more than 300,000 YouTube views. (Watch below.) Experts suspect the gorilla adjusted his stance in order to carry larger amounts of food and peer over his pen's walls. While other gorillas have been known to stand upright, few have perfected such a human-like gait.
The reaction: While this is eerily reminiscent of Planet of the Apes, saysThe Economic Times, it's also significant because it suggests "the development gap (between humans and apes) is being closed pretty rapidly." We're watching Ambam as he is "reproducing that almost mythical moment from evolutionary history" when our ancestors stood up for the first time, writes Dr. Charlotte Uhlenbroek at The Daily Mail. This may seem harmless, jokes Alex Balk at The Awl, but it's only a matter of time before the gorillas take over and we humans are overrun. "This guy is just hoping that if he keeps quiet about it for now he will get some kind of supervisory role in the new regime. Consider yourselves warned." Watch Ambam walk: