Seven gorillas, including two babies, got a special treat at the Cincinnati Zoo Thursday and it's not even Halloween yet. Gorill-A-Lanterns were filled with granola, raisins, sunflower seeds, peanuts, grapes, popcorn and apples.
The calm before the storm
The arrival of the gorillas into the exhibit was carefully orchestrated so nobody (except maybe the silverback Jomo) got special treatment.
Curator of Primates Ron Evans, who designed and carved some of the pumpkins, radioed staff to let the gorillas come out.
Some waited and others dug right in.
Don't eat mine!
The Silverback Jomo seemed to claim a whole group of pumpkins for himself. Evans said, "Well Jomo is happy right now and he's just eating as much of that stuff as he can. I think what he's thinking is, he's scoping out all the other ones around and when I'm done with these I'm going to go over and probably take Anju's pumpkin."
Zoo visitor Lee Hagedorn got a kick out of watching the gorillas. "I think it's pretty cool. We've seen them do the Easter egg hunt in the spring before. So it's neat how they are just like little kids with this. Like kids, they'll dig through their candy. They dig through their pumpkins or Easter baskets. It's just really neat to see how they are just like us in a lot of ways."
