A photo of a woman playing videos on a cellphone for a gorilla at the Louisville Zoo is turning heads on the internet.
Lindsey Costello told WDRB that she was treating herself with a visit to the zoo on her last day of leave following military training when she spotted a woman playing videos for a gorilla in the Gorilla Forest exhibit.
Costello said the woman saw how excited she was and offered to let her try. For the next 20 minutes, she sat on the other side of a glass partition from a gorilla named Jelani, playing videos of baby gorillas.
"If he got tired of a video, he'd move his hand up and swipe," Costell told WHAS. "If I moved the phone away he'd stretch it out. He intimately enjoyed the videos."
A friend snapped a photo of the pair that was later shared on Reddit, bringing attention from around the globe.
It’s not the first time Jelani’s love for technology has brought him into the spotlight.
A video of the Western Lowland gorilla, enthralled as a teen scrolled through photos in front of him, went viral in 2015, according to WDRB.
“They really appreciate having people come and hang out with them, sit and show them pictures and do interesting things,” Jill Katka, assistant curator for the Louisville Zoo’s commissary and Gorilla Forest exhibit, told WHAS. “We have some older female gorillas that really love children.”
Jelani is the only gorilla at the zoo drawn specifically to technology, according to WDRB. Katka told WHAS that the fascination started when Jelani was young.
“He kind of grew up looking at pictures and hanging out with people,” Katka said. “That just makes him a wonderful ambassador for gorillas.”
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