The monkey is so majestic, the way he watched the trick calmly, he seemed so human like, and his playful reaction at the end.
How many times have we seen videos of animals in captivity, playing with humans on the other side of the glass and thought – wow, that’s so cute!
There’s something pretty incredible about seeing a wild animal interact with a human, even if that interaction is only made possible by the safety of some really, really thick plexiglass. Just take this video of a baboon reacting to a magic trick. Seeing the face on this monkey’s face is sure to make you laugh out loud.
It’s easy to see these videos, laugh and share them with all our friends, but what’s less easy to do is zoom out for a second and evaluate the circumstances that lead this interaction to be.
Let’s take this baboon for example. It seems pretty clear that the baboon is amazed by the card trick in front of him and reacts in a surprised manner.
But leading primatologist Frans de Waal, interprets the reaction to more likely be the monkey’s response to eye contact from the magician and the hand gestures right in front of his face, something these animals “really do not like.”
