Gorillas are very, very intelligent creatures. And it seems that they now even understand modern technology — including camera phones.

Spotted recently at the Louisville Zoo in Kentucky was Jelani, a silverback gorilla who cuddles up against the glass in order to look at the pictures zoo patrons have taken of him. It’s both sweet and sad at the same time. On the one hand, it’s exciting that Jelani understands and enjoys looking at photos of himself, but on the other, it’s hard to think about what it must be like for an intelligent being to live its life behind glass, constantly being photographed and watched.

The good news is that Jelani does not seem angry about his situation. In fact, he seemed quite content sitting up against the glass with an unknown gentleman, looking at photo after photo. He even nodded his head along as if to say, “Okay, next photo please.” It’s pretty amazing.

We hope that Jelani continues to enjoy his time at the zoo and keeps interacting with humans in such a loving way. The way he acted toward the patron indicates that Jelani absolutely loves his zookeeper friends — and that’s amazing! Maybe for his birthday one of them can get Jelani his very own smartphone. Who knows, maybe he’ll be the ones taking pictures soon.

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