Kitombe in Cabinet

I subscribe to the quarterly arts and culture magazine Cabinet - it's a gorgeous publication with elegant design, rich artwork, and the literary soul of  a science journal. The current issue's theme is "Hair", and to my surprise, who did I happen to find gracing page 80 but the patriarch of the FPZ gorilla troop, Kitombe (father of new baby, Kambiri). His photo was used to illustrate an article on trichotillomania, a repetitive hair plucking disorder found in humans as well as captive animals, and he is sadly a perfect case study. The article was written by local MIT Phd candidate Laurel Braitman, who researched hair plucking in the FPZ gorillas, along with "barbering" in mice, and feather plucking in cockatoos. A writer and historian of science, Laurel studies changing perceptions of animal thoughts, and how animal behavior (particularly "crazy" behavior) informs our understanding of them, as well as ourselves. She ruminates on this subject on her blog: www.animalmadness.com.

I have not to date posted my sketches and painting of Kit - perhaps I was waiting for this occasion... but I will admit, he is not my favorite ape subject, in part because of his self-styled, patchy fur (and in part because he tends to be more sedentary and reclusive than the other gorillas, which doesn't make for compelling drawing). In both depictions here, Kit's bald patches are notable: large naked areas on his arms make his anatomy much more visible than it would be on a thickly furred adult male, and the dome of his impressive sagittal crest is sadly only populated by stubble (the hair does grow back if left alone). The FPZ keepers continue to explore new solutions to the trichotillomania problem (most promising, and probably healthy in many other ways, are efforts to decrease opportunities for boredom by adjusting to more frequent foraging schedules, and introducing more enrichment items), though hair plucking can be an easily learned behavior, and a number of other troop members have already started...