24th March 2009

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This gorilla is wasted

Wildlife photographer Andy Rouse caught a family of endangered Rwandan mountain gorillas getting drunk on the sap from bamboo shoots.

“It was not exactly Gorillas In The Mist,” he told the Daily Mail, “more like gorillas who were pissed.”

In the photos, the apes are snapping off bamboo stalks, drinking the sap and then looking, in stages, amused, confused and dispirited. In one shot, a huge silverback gorilla named Kwitonda looks like he’s getting jiggy with it.

“Normally,” says Rouse, “they eat handfuls of other vegetation, like a sort of salad to soak up the sap, but this time they were just enjoying a drink.”

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