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Where did he come from, this gorilla? What strange journey brought him from Africa to 79th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan? How did he die? And by what process was his flesh stripped from his pale white bones?
There he hangs, wired together like a dancing marionette, for our education. Note the skull, marked by mandibular prognathism and a pronounced sagittal crest. Observe the long canine teeth; pay close attention to the distal phalanges, which display evidence of knuckle-walking. Those fingers were once covered with meat and tendons and muscle and skin, skin with fingerprints, perfectly individualized fingerprints just like ours. By removing that meat and flesh we are better able to see just how similar our two species are.
The Natural History Museum isn’t a bad place for bones to reside. It’s a long way from the rain forest, a long way from the Lualaba River, a long long way…but there’s a pretty good Indian restaurant nearby and a fine coffee shop that serves fresh cranberry scones that are to die for. No bamboo shoots, however, and no ant nests, no authentic gorilla cuisine. We all have to learn to live with disappointment.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
