9/19 Wilderness Explorer Game Testing At Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park
Next, I headed to the Research Center, where the last poop sample (none of it real, of course) was left out. This one was an "Uknown Scat Speciman", and I needed to figure out whether it was from a gorilla or lion based on what was in it. Since there was no chimp hair, and mostly seeds – it was from a gorilla.
I received my "badge" (a sticker) on my first sheet:
Next, it was time to earn the Gorilla Badge. The two requirements for this were to observe two behaviors: that gorillas walk with their knuckles, and that gorillas find direct eye contact to be threatening. I waited for them to walk on their knuckles, but I already have experience with the eye contact part. Back in the late 90's, not long after Disney's Animal Kingdom opened, I stopped on the bridge to watch a gorilla. There were probably 4 or 5 people on the bridge, and the gorilla decided to poop in his hand and fling it at us. I think everyone but me got hit, and apparently it is something that happened many times. Sometime after that, Disney added some foliage to that area so the gorilla couldn't do it anymore.
On the way to the gorillas, a spider caught guest's attention. I looked it up, and it appears to be a golden silk spider (not poisonous, but very large!)
The gorillas:
The brush that was added to keep the gorilla from flinging poop at the crowd:
The Cast Member who was handing out the "badge" asked a couple of gorilla questions, including one that had to do with eye contact between gorillas.
Sticker sheet:
My Wilderness Explorer pages were in here:
I took a quick picture, you can see the sticker I was given to start out with on my shirt:
And I answered questions about both badge activities on a computer:
