Gorillas. These chest-beating, salad-munching, communal living, thick-furred beauties have so many surprises for you. Gorillaologist (IT’S A WORD) Dr. Tara Stoinski has been a gorilla scientist for nearly 3 decades and dishes on everything from fieldwork in cloudy mountains to dick facts, forest farts, banana flim-flam, the intersection of animal conservation and community investment, night-time nesting, grief, what those big teeth are for, gorilla musk, the legacy of primatologist Dr. Dian Fossey and the Gorilla Fund, and why our closest relatives need and deserve our protection. Also some weird asides about jaw exercises and online dating, because I want to.

Listen via Stitcher, Apple, Podbay, Podcast Addict, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcript

Follow Dr. Tara Stoinski on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook

Donations were made to Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund & LA Regional Food Bank

More links you may enjoy:

A book Dr. Stoinski co-edited: Great Apes and Humans: The Ethics of Coexistence

Enjoy the many many many papers she has authored

Her early jackal research

Where we got the term “gorillaology”

Etymology of “Gorilla”: heads up, it’s YIKES

The genetic impact of an Ebola outbreak on a wild gorilla population

Paper on primate jaw muscles