The Talking Gorilla

Hanabiko, famous with her nickname, Koko, a 48-year-old female western lowland gorilla who is known for learning more than 2000 hand signs as claimed by Francine Patterson, her instructor, and psychologist. Koko was lent to Francine for her doctoral research but the two have never been apart. Koko was born in a San Fransisco Zoo on July 4th, 1971, and has been living in Woodside, California for most of her life. She has been famous for her sign techniques as you can see her with the late actor Robin Williams, reportedly she was even sad when she was informed of his demise in 2014. She grabbed everyone’s attention when she requested for a Christmas gift of her own choice! 

Koko And Her First Kitten

On one Christmas, back in the 1980s, Koko, whose favorite book is “The Three Little Kittens” and “Puss ‘n’ Boots,” asked for a kitten as her Christmas present. “But we gave her a life-like stuffed animal and she was terribly upset,” recalls Ron Cohn, a biologist. However, Koko was smart enough to know the difference and denied playing with the toy and kept indicating how sad it was! Soon, on her next birthday, she was allowed to choose a kitten and she adopted a gray and white kitten and named her ‘All Ball’. Cohn recalls, “The cat was a Manx and looked like a ball. Koko likes to rhyme words in sign language.” Both were on National Geographic magazine’s cover that month.