Pets Hunters

These wild haired primates prove that being a real life gorilla in the mist can wreak havoc with your hairdo.

Looking in desperate need of some frizz-ease, the grizzled gorillas have the local weather to thank for their curly look.

Aren't they cute?





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Photo: Kevin Zhao / Reuters

Photo:Marian Brickner / Zuma Press

The following photos are from the Daily Mail's story about the Infant Care Unit at Bukit Merah Lake Town Resort - dubbed Orang-Utan Island - located in the Malaysian jungle. It is a very special hospital because all of its patients are from the endangered Borneo species of orangutans, the Pongo Pygmaeus.

Photo: Yoshikazu Tsuno / AFP - Getty Images

Bulldog Kisses Orangutan


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Orphaned infant chimpanzees that received attentive, nurturing care from human surrogate mothers were found to be more intellectually advanced than the average human baby when both groups were compared at the age of nine months, according to a new study published in the latest issue of Developmental Psychobiology.

When the chimps were nine months old, they took an IQ test normally used to evaluate human infant development. The chimps who had received responsive care aced the test, even surpassing the scores of average human infants tested at the same age.

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When the Cape Government Railways opened the first railway line to Port Elizabeth from Cape Town during the later part of the 1800’s the town Uitenhage was established. The railway station became world renown when the local railway guard James Edwin Wide had a working baboon Jack the Signalman that assisted him in his daily tasks.

Wide had lost both legs in an accident when fell underneath a moving train. His determination and his perseverance forced him to make his own pegged-legs from a piece of wood that was strapped onto his lower half of his body. He also made himself a trolley with an intricate hand apparatus that made him a little more mobile.

Wide acquired a young baboon, named him Jack, and proceeded to train Jack to perform all the duties required to run the station. Not only did Jack get his monthly rations from the government but he also received an employment number.

During 1890 Jack got sick and contracted tuberculosis and died, Wide was inconsolable to the loss of his friend as they were inseparable. Jack’s skull is on display in the Albany Museum in Grahamstown.

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(via Culture Dish)

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Zoo managers have taken Brussels sprouts off the Christmas menu after the vegetable caused an attack of flatulence in their gorillas.

The staff at Chessington Zoo fed the giant apes on the seasonal favorite as they are filled with nutritional goodness. However, they hadn't reckoned with the gassy qualities of the tiny veggies.

Now the zoo has issued an apology after guests at the zoo expressed their horror at the potent smell that started emanating from the gorillas' enclosure.

Gorilla keeper Michael Rozzi said: "We feed the gorillas brussel sprouts during the winter because they are packed with vitamin C and have great nutritional benefits.

"Unfortunately, an embarrassing side effect is that it can cause bouts of flatulence in humans and animals alike.

"However, I don't think any of us were prepared for a smell that strong."

Source: The london paper

(via monkeys in the news)

Keepers handling the newborn gorilla at the San Francisco Zoo are hoping to find a surrogate gorilla mother for a baby whose own mom is showing little interest in him.

Mom, an endangered western lowland gorilla named Monifa, bedded down in the gorilla enclosure about as far away as she could from her infant.

The baby gorilla, part of the critically endangered lowland western species, was the first born at the zoo in 10 years.

Source: SF Gate

—Photograph by Stefano Unterthiner/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Image from Mail Online

This happy family is father - Orange, mother - Smirre, and their one-week old baby, who live at the Budapest Zoo Park and Botanic Garden. They are Javan Lutung (Trachypithecus auratus) also known as Javan Langur. The cub was born on August 18, 2008.

By some estimates, Borneo's vast forests are being cleared faster than the Amazon. Unless something is done now, Orangutans could be extinct in 20 years.

The practice of bulldozing everything to make way for palm oil plantations has left Orang-utans without their customary habitat.

Lone Droescher-Nieslen from the Orangutan Survival Foundation hopes she can rehabilitate the Orangutans back into the wild. But if the rate of deforestation continues, there may soon be no forests to release them into...

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China's fauna exhibits a unique diversity of apes. Unfortunately, the apes are more seriously endangered by extinction in China than in any other country. A research team assembled by anthropologists of Zurich University now conclude that another ape species has just become extinct in China's Yunnan province.

Science Daily reports that the 14-member scientific team recently carried out a survey in all Chinese forests. They could not locate a single Yunnan white-handed gibbon. The last time this ape was observed in China was in 1988 at the Nangunhe Nature Reserve in south-western Yunnan province. Their loud, melodious calls were last heard in 1992. This subspecies (Hylobates lar yunnanensis) is not known from any other place.

Luckily, these apes are not lost to us forever. Several zoos have included them in their programs. One is the Honolulu Zoo. On their web page, you can hear the call of the white-handed gibbon:

listen

You can also see pictures of Emma, an adorable baby white-handed gibbon, born in 2000. Here's a picture of Emma, 7 hours after birth.