Curtis and his little brother, Charlie, are settling in nicely at the Denver Zoo.
The Western lowland gorillas are transplants from North Carolina.
The brothers have joined the bachelor party of gorillas in Denver and can now be seen afternoons inside the Great Apes Building.
Zoo officials say bachelor groups of gorillas are fairly common. In the wild, zoo officials said in a statement, “male gorillas will also form bachelor groups, starting around the age of 8 years, until the male gorilla can get a female or females to coexist with them to form a family group.”
Curtis is 13 years old and weighs 454 pounds. Charlie is 11 and tips the scales at 434 pounds.
Western lowland gorillas can be found in the tropical forests of Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Nigeria. The species is classified as “critically endangered.”
Zookeepers say the brothers are quite intelligent and can identify several of their body parts and even distinguish their right and left hands and feet. It assists veterinarians when 400-plus pound patients can help out during an exam.
