Great Apes Spin Themselves Silly, Just Like Us

Researchers in the UK have spent hours watching great apes – gorillas, bonobos, orangutans, and chimps – spinning on ropes and vines, apparently internationally inducing dizziness. Of course this inspired a study, “Great Apes Reach Momentary Altered Mental States By Spinning,” published in the journal Primates.

The scientists’ interest was first piqued by a viral video of a male gorilla spinning madly in a kiddie pool. They then began watching other apes going ‘round and ‘round –  some 40 online videos of apes, spinning – as they analyzed things like average revolution per episode (five and a half) and average speed (1.5 revolutions per second).

“Apes became noticeably dizzy in many of the videos, and they were likely to lose their balance and fall,” says the University of Birmingham’s Marcus Perlman, who co-led the research. “This would indicate that the primates deliberately keep spinning, despite starting to feel the effects of dizziness, until they are unable to keep their balance any longer.”

Why let the apes have all the fun? “We experimented ourselves with spinning at these speeds, and found it difficult to sustain for as long as the great apes did in several cases,” Perlman added. Meanwhile the apes maintained gyrations on par with professional dancers, circus artists, and whirling Dervishes.

“Spinning is a way in which great apes can change their state of mind and, since these apes share with humans the tendency to create such experiences, our discovery offers the tantalizing prospect that we’ve inherited this drive to seek altered mental states from our evolutionary ancestors.”

It’s hard to imagine what the evolutionary advantage could be to intentionally making yourself dizzy, but we’ll drink to that.

Watch the video that inspired the dizzying research here.

Photo credit: University of Birmingham