Gorilla At Texas Zoo Is A Social Media Star Thanks To Its Dance Skills

The Dallas Zoo is among the hundreds of zoos around the world that shows off its animals' antics on TikTok and Instagram.

But one Dallas Zoo resident has become a social star thanks to his dance movies.

Meet Zola, a male silverback gorilla. Zola has gone viral multiple times because he loves to splash and spin around in water. If you sync Zola's moves to music, the gorilla tears up the dance floor.

It's fitting that Zola's latest video, which has been seen more than 12 million times, is set to the song Maniac from the movie Flashdance.

Gorillas aren't known for break dancing, but Zola's unique behavior is as sign of happiness, Dallas Zoo senior zoologist Cristina Powers told the Dallas Observer.

“When you look at him doing those videos his face looks extremely happy. So that's for us to know what gorilla behavior is like: his mouth is open in a relaxed way, and you know, he's just basically having fun," Powers said.

Zola lives in a large exhibit with other gorillas, but he only likes to show off his moves when he's inside and playing with water. What makes Zola's behavior even more interesting is that the zoo keepers have no clue where he learned to dance and spin.

"That started back when he was in Calgary Zoo," Powers says. "And we don't know specifically if he learned from somebody else or he just decided to do that on his own. It's definitely ... it's not something that he learned here."

The Dallas Zoo is having as much fun as Zola and are making remixes of his now famous moves.