Gorillas in our midst

If you buy the idea that we are because we think, where does that place our fellow primates?

The Bronx Zoo has bestowed human names on some of the animals at its sublime Congo Gorilla Forest. There’s a group of bachelor gorillas — Jobari, Babatunde, Barraca and M’domo — and a family including silverback Ernie, his mates Julia, Kumi, Layla and Tuti and their offspring. Is Ernie only an Ernie to the degree he cogitates like us? Would you say his smaller brain, about a third the size of a human’s, bars the possibility of selfhood for him? Or is something else entirely at play?

One way or another, visiting the zoo’s engrossing Congo exhibit is likely to give you renewed appreciation for some of our closest cousins in the animal kingdom. The trip costs $5 on top of admission to the zoo, with the proceeds going to international preservation efforts by the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the institution at 2300 Southern Blvd. The society says the exhibit has raised $12.5 million since opening in 1999.

After the rustic, canopied entrance to the 6.5-acre exhibit, the first animals to greet visitors are long-tailed colobus monkeys. On a recent morning, the zoo’s inhabitants seemed to be at their ease ambling along branches and munching on fruit.

Down the path, there are some non-simian specimens. You might think a pair of okapis, quadrapeds with striking horizontal stripes on their legs, are related to zebras. But if you pay close attention to their feeding, in which they stick out long, lithe tongues, you will notice the resemblance to their actual closest relatives, giraffes.

Down the way, there are magnificent mandrills, a relative of the baboon whose males are known for vibrant colors on its face and lower parts, red river hogs, which seem like a fantastical version of the variety more familiar to North Americans, and an indoor house of reptiles that are native to the Congo River. The mandrills and hogs share the same turf, part of the zoo’s attempt to create multi-species exhibits instead of showcasing animals in isolation.