UCSC Review Winter 1996

Realizing Their Dreams: Zihlman Offers Undergraduates the Rare Opportunity to Dissect and Study a Gorilla

As a young girl growing up in the Sunset district of San Francisco, Kim Nichols spent countless summer days watching the gorillas at the San Francisco Zoo.

"The zoo was free for kids then, and I dreamed of being a zoologist," says Nichols. "But I was told I was too dumb in math and that girls didn't do science, so I didn't pursue it."

Years later, as an anthropology major at UCSC, Nichols was one of the undergraduates Adrienne Zihlman called when she needed help dissecting Bwana.

When she first walked into the lab where Bwana was laid out, Nichols says she recognized the smell of the gorillas from the zoo. "He was so beautiful. I reached out and stroked the fur on his arm," she recalls. "It was so soft. I kept thinking he'd wake up."

Nichols became a key member of Zihlman's team, working twelve- and fourteen-hour days in the lab. The dissection demanded such concentration that she recalls often emerging at the end of the day disoriented, her arms aching, and her hands so tired she was unable to make a fist.

Recognizing Nichols's talent and dedication, Zihlman asked her to dissect the feet. "I was thrilled, absolutely thrilled," says Nichols.

By the time she finished, Nichols had made some impressive observations about ape adaptation. Most significantly, she detected some anatomical features of Bwana's feet that suggest that the lowland gorilla foot has been adapted for both tree and land locomotion.

Nichols and Zihlman will present the results at a physical anthropology meeting this spring and are preparing the findings for publication.

Nichols's entire fifth year at UCSC was consumed by the gorilla project, and she did related fieldwork in Costa Rica over the summer after she graduated. She returned to UCSC this past fall to help Zihlman with her course on human evolution and has applied to graduate school in comparative anatomy. She credits Bwana with literally changing her life.

"It's kind of emotional for me," says Nichols, describing the past eighteen months. "Can something change your life this much? I guess so. I'm doing the thing I love to do with one of the animals that inspired my original interest. So you can see this was very special in many ways, and just such a wonderful opportunity for an undergraduate."

The experience of watching a scientist do research was invaluable for two other undergraduates. For Kim Williams-Guillen, working on the dissection as an undergraduate was an opportunity that she's certain helped her get into the graduate program in anthropology at New York University. "As an undergraduate on this project, I got to go behind the scenes a bit," says Williams-Guillen, who helped dissect the trunk, rib cage, and neck.

Curtis Duke pitched in during the early dissection. "One of the excellent things about working with Adrienne is that we got the experience that graduate students normally get," says Duke, who is now working as an archaeologist in southern California and applying to graduate schools in forensic anthropology. Duke speaks reverently of the access he had to faculty at UCSC. "Adrienne had a very large impact on me. She inspired me tremendously."

Jennifer McNulty