One of the key points I tried to make in my book is that a lot of things that look like human intelligence in animals may really be nothing of the kind. That's what makes us suckers for all of those clever animal stories out there. There was a flood of donations, and TV crews from all over the world came and did stories about it. But several months later additional information started coming out. The idea was that she'd do the same when she gave birth.
Gorillas are capable of some marvelous feats of cognitive understanding.
The fact that the zoo keepers were able to train this gorilla to do what she did says something right there. But when you start to really look at what animals can do and understand the ways in which they're different from us, it's an even more remarkable story. One example comes from baboons that were observed in the wild. Generally, the dominant male will not let the other males mate with the females within his earshot or sight. A scientist observed one female who would repeatedly creep behind a rock where the dominant male couldn't see her, and there she would mate with a young male.