Great Ape Blows Zoo Away

In the Walt Disney movie The Jungle Book, the orangutan King Louie sings a song called “I Wan’na Be Like You.” It’s all about how he wants to be like the humans. It goes: “Oh, oobee doo, I wanna be like you, I wanna walk like you, talk like you, too, you'll see it’s true, an ape like me can learn to be human, too …”

It seems the Jungle King has gotten one step closer to his wish: Bonnie, a brainy 32-year-old orangutan from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., made the news when she taught herself how to whistle!

What makes this so unique is the fact that no one ever taught Bonnie to whistle. “I don’t whistle, but someone at some point in life, whistled while they worked and she just learned how to do it on her own,” the zoo’s Great Ape keeper Erin Stromberg told WJLA-TV. Bonnie doesn't whistle for food or attention; she just does it when she feels like it. 

The fact that Bonnie can imitate sounds made by others nixes the idea that orangutans have only a set number of sounds they make as involuntary responses. “Sounds aren’t necessarily all genetic and they can be behavioral or ecological, and also voluntary,” said Stromberg. Bonnie’s spontaneous ability shows that some apes can learn sounds from another species. The finding, recently published in the journal Primates, could give new insight into how speech itself actually evolved.

Orangutans are known to ape humans. Bonnie is very observant and copies her caretakers. She sometimes sweeps up after herself and washes the windows (but she doesn’t whistle while she works). She even chooses to walk on two feet like her human counterparts.

I think this just goes to show how much we have yet to learn about all the amazing animals that share our world. Who knows? We may someday be asking our pets what they want for dinner, and they may just answer us!

Hear Bonnie whistle here.

~By Larissa von Nyssen, Current Events student reporter

Photos: Bonnie, left, with friend Kiko at the National Zoo (AP Images/Gerald Herbert); Bonnie (Jessie Cohen/Smithsonian’s National Zoo)

Comments

[misael]

It is very cool.

[Sarah Chen]

Wow! What a smart animal! Maybe someday when you go to the zoo or somewhere to watch orangutans, they may say “hello!” to you.

[South Decatur Elementary - 4th Grade - Group 2]

We liked your article because orangutans can whistle. We wish we could learn more about orangutans. It is interesting to learn about them. We love animals!

[jj]

an orangutan whistling? Wow what's next, it brushing its teeth or going around saying "Good day chaps what do you have for lunch" or eating with a fork, spoon, and knife? That'd be awsome.