Featured Image Credit: Rob Doolaard/AFP via Getty Images / JERRY LAMPEN/AFP via Getty Images
Topics: Animals, Nature, World News
Callum Jones
Topics: Animals, Nature, World News
There's a particular reason why you avoid making eye contact with a gorilla after a woman was once attacked for smiling at one.
Bokito, a 400-pound gorilla, resided at Diergaarde Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
He likely saw tons of people come and go, however, there was one woman who visited him regularly.
And when she did, she would regularly smile at him - despite zookeepers issuing advice not to.
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In 2007, things took a turn for the worst when Bokito was provoked after children threw rocks at him, leading him to jump over his enclosure towards his female visitor.
The gorilla reportedly dragged the woman around, bit her and caused multiple fractures.
The chaos did not stop there as Bokito continued his rampage into a restaurant, where three more people were left injured.
Zookeepers were able to get him under control by sedating him with a tranquilizer gun, before he was taken back to the enclosure.
According to the Great Adventure Safaris website, gorillas, in particular, though, you really don't want to be making direct eye contact with as they might be considered an 'enemy'.
The site states: "To mountain gorillas, any person who keeps direct eye contact with them is a challenger and an enemy who comes to destroy the family.
"Direct eye contact will therefore force the silverback to charge and fight you in order to defend his family. If you want to be peaceful with gorillas, you should avoid eye contact."
One man who'd visited the zoo with his 57-year-old wife even recalled getting the no eye contact advice from a zookeeper.
The woman had been regularly visited Bokito to the point where she was almost seeing him daily since he was four months old.
The pair were pretty familiar with each other, there's no doubt about that.
She told local newspaper De Telegraaf: "I go to the zoo almost every day with my husband, and we’re always going to see Bokito.
I even have pictures and videos from Berlin when he was only 4 months old. If I laugh at him, he laughs back."
The woman was taken to hospital to be treated for bite wounds, a broken wrist and arm.
“I stood by the small apes in the Africa section when I heard a thud behind me. I turned around and there was Bokito. I had nowhere to go. He gripped me, sat on me with his full weight and began biting me,” she continued to say.
“I could only think, 'Oh God, I’m going to die, I’m going to die'.”
As reported by NBC, she was also quoted as saying from her hospital bed: "He is and remains my darling."