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It's quite a rare sight or rather a surreal occasion for animal experts to do some serious dental work on a big gorilla. But that's exactly what happened when one of UK's largest gorillas, the hugely intimidating Pertinax, underwent a 45-minute dental ordeal as a highly-skilled team of veterinarians and an animal dentist performed a painstaking root canal surgery on the 33-year old Silverback Western lowland giant ape.

Pertinax is such an imposing creature so the operation required nothing less than perfectly coordinated specialist teamwork. The 179-kilogram gorilla had a tooth fracture which could potentially develop into a life-threatening abscess unless treated immediately according to ABC News.

"When a tooth is fractured the living pulp becomes exposed. This can lead to an infection and an abscess," told Jo Reynard of Paignton Zoo as quoted saying by Mirror.

To prevent an awful deterioration of his dental condition, the management at Paignton Zoo, Devon decided to act swiftly. The zoo requested Dr. Peter Kertesz, an animal dentist renowned for his exotic dental work on some of the world's toughest animal species, to lead a tricky root canal surgery on the poor ape as reported by Daily Mail UK.

The whole process wasn't that easy to perform. To start with, ten people from diverse expert backgrounds were needed to carry out the sensitive operation which was completed in less than hour.

The Paignton Zoo staff expressed a great sigh of relief and overwhelming joy after the completion of the surgery.

"Pertinax deserves the best and duly got it. The operation was a complete success," remarked Neil Bemmet of Paignton Zoo as mentioned in the same ABC News article cited above.