Lisa Moore, pictured. Photograph by Steve Crocker.

Rotterdam. Something large and black thrashed through the glossy rhododendron leaves and broke out onto the asphalt. Harry heard the crowd screaming in German and French, but he heard the word gorilla in English. Or it is the same word in all those languages. This was Harry’s last day in Rotterdam. The bush was shiny-leaved and so green it looked dark, full of shadow.

The animal moved with a tumbling hitch in its gait. Shoulder bones rolling beneath silver fur, powerful haunches, leathery chest. It was big. It was bigger than Harry imagined and he thought he could smell it.

People mistake evolution for cosmic design, but it’s actually pure accident. It was not that man stood up because it would help him survive, but that the standing men were able to step to the side when the glaciers rumbled through ...