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34-year-old orangutan learns how to tie knots, and now we're wondering what else he can do

Could an orangutan learn to braid hair? The people want to know.

Metro Richmond Zoo/TikTok

Patrick the orangutan is a knot-tying master.

We've all heard the stories about how intelligent the great apes are, the great apes being a family of primates that include chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, and bonobos. There've been many famous cases of gorillas learning sign language, caring for kittens, or otherwise showing pretty astounding human-like behaviors.

Remember Koko, the famous gorilla who knew over 1,000 American Sign Language gestures? Her language proficiency may have been overestimated at the time, but she did help to completely change the way we view the intelligence and capabilities of the great apes. More recently there was Kanzi, a bonobo, who showed amazing proficiency at understanding and communicating with language. Kanzi once demanded the materials for s'mores, made his own fire, and roasted his own marshmallows!

The next famous great ape just might be Patrick the chimpanzee, a resident at the Metro Richmond Zoo.

orangutan, animals, zoo, great apes, monkeys, chimpanzees, animal intelligence, viral, funny, amazingPuffy cheeks called flanges are a sign of attractiveness and dominance in orangutans. Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

In a video posted to TikTok, the zoo notes that Patrick just turned 34. His zookeepers gave him a royal green cloak to mark the occasion.

If he looks a little different than you're used to, it's because Patrick has especially pronounced flanges, or puffy cheeks. Not all males have flanges, but the ladies dig them. So those big old cheeks are just one more reason Patrick is a total stud.

In the video, we see Patrick wrap the cloak around himself and tie it into a perfect knot. It's absolutely astonishing to watch. It's maybe less impressive than some of the greatest feats accomplished by Koko and Kanzi, but there's something so human about the moment. It makes you view these animals in a completely different light. Just watch him pull the knot tight and then double-knot it to make sure it won't budget. Amazing!

Watch the viral moment here:

@metrorichmondzoo

Patrick turns 34, receives a royal cloak, and then ties the perfect knot - because even jungle royalty needs a signature look! 👑🦧✨ King behavior. #metrorichmondzoo #rva #orangutans #patricktheorangutan


5 million people viewed the video and were left in awe. They were also left wondering: What else can Patrick do?

Commenters had some interesting ideas:

"Now give him a fitted sheet and see what he can do"

"why do I feel like he could french braid my hair better than I can"

"Has anyone ever hugged him and if so what was it like?"

People were jokingly convinced that Patrick could speak, but chose not to:

"100% believe the conspiracy that they can talk but dont because they dont want humans to know"

Patrick isn't the first orangutan to tie knots. They've been observed doing it in the wild, and their weaving and tying skills are considered an extension of their nest-building behaviors.

orangutan, animals, zoo, great apes, monkeys, chimpanzees, animal intelligence, viral, funny, amazingOrangutans have been observed tying knots in the wild without human instruction. Photo by Pat Whelen on Unsplash

But truly, what else can great apes do?

It was recently discovered that chimpanzees used medical plants to treat each other's wounds in the wild, in addition to using leaves to wipe themselves down after sex or pooping. This fits with the great apes well-known use of tools, but it also challenges the notion that humans are the only species that displays empathy and altruistic behaviors. Chimpanzees also have highly sophisticated memories and are capable of recalling specific events from years ago and even recognizing photos of themselves when they were younger.

Chimps and other apes have been proven to be able to perform basic math and some experts even say they have a photographic memory!

It's impossible to read all this and watch Patrick's intelligence on display without wondering whether great apes should ever be kept in captivity. They're so intelligent and capable of feeling, it seems cruel to keep them behind bars. But as conservation organizations have pointed out, many great apes simply can not be introduced back into the wild due to massive habitat loss. These creatures are endangered for a reason, and kudos go to the caring zookeepers who take care of them and help provide apes like Patrick with safe, enriching lives.

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Sandra the orangutan has started washing her hands after observing her caretakers do it

Center for Great Apes/YouTube

This is Sandra. Sandra is smart.

Sandra observed her caretakers washing their hands repeatedly at the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Florida.

Sandra started washing her hands too.

Sandra scrubs the fronts and backs of her hands.

Sandra takes the time to clean her hands thoroughly.

Sandra has good hand hygiene.

Sandra Washing Her Hands #washyourhandswww.youtube.com

Sandra is responsible.

Sandra stays home.

Sandra isn't throwing parties.

Sandra isn't hanging out at the beach with people.

Sandra isn't inviting friends over.

Sandra isn't putting vulnerable people's lives at risk.

Sandra probably touches her face like it's her job, but...

Sandra washes her hands better than most humans.

Sandra scrubs surfaces around her, too.

Sandra is smart.

Be like Sandra.


CORRECTION: April 1, 2020: This article was updated two hours after its original publication to remove the phrase "during the coronavirus pandemic," as Sandra's handwashing habit originated a few months prior to the pandemic.

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Orangutans are pretty much the best. And, guess what, there’s a whole new species.

Orangutans are pretty amazing animals. They’re one of the few great apes alive today and among humankind's closest cousins. But we may not have realized just how amazing they are until now.

The discovery started with a scene out of something like "CSI." Raya, an older adult male orangutan, had been killed by humans back in 2013. Researchers knew Raya had come from an unusual population of orangutans and had preserved his skeleton for study. And as they pored over the remains, a couple of weird things started to stick out.

"We were surprised that the skull was quite different in some characteristics from anything we had seen before," said Matt Nowak, an anthropologist. The teeth looked different too.

Hey there, big fella. Photo by Maxime Aliaga/University of Zurich.

Before he became an evolutionary puzzle, Raya had come from a rugged, mountainous, and thickly forested area known as Batang Toru.

Batang Toru is far south of anywhere else orangutans are found in Sumatra. The apes that live there are cut off from any other population of their kind. Isolated populations often evolve in unique and interesting ways, which hinted to scientists that the Batang Toru apes were special.

Armed with Raya's unique skull and teeth, the Indonesian scientists reached out to colleagues who'd done a previous genetic study.

"It was then that all the pieces fell in place," Nowak says.

The Batang Toru apes weren't just special. They were a unique species.

In honor of the Malaysian district the apes were found in, the new species has been given the scientific name Pongo tapanuliensis.

Before this, we’d known of two orangutan species. One on the island of Sumatra and one in Borneo, with Sumatran orangutans having thinner faces, longer beards, and a tendency to use more tools. But we now know there aren't two orangutan species out there — there are three.

The genetic analysis also showed that the Batang Toru apes weren't just a new species but may also represent an ancient genetic lineage that stretches back to the first orangutans to arrive on Sumatra eons ago.

The new species of ape. Photo by Tim Laman/University of Zurich.

But even as the world gets to know this new species of great ape, its future is already uncertain.

The entire species might only include about 800 living animals, according to a survey. In fact, primates all around the world are facing increasingly tough odds — as many as three-quarters of all primate species are in decline.

The good news is that we already know several ways to help out this new species. Like all orangutans, the Batang Toru apes need large, healthy forests to survive, which means protecting their habitat from deforestation is critical. The World Wildlife Fund, TRAFFIC, and International Animal Rescue also help governments crackdown on the illegal wildlife trade, which can affect orangutans. They even rescue infants that were sold as pets.

It's hard to look into a great ape's eyes and not see a little of ourselves reflected back at us.

The discovery of a whole new species of human cousin should be an incredible moment of joy. But it should also a rallying cry for better, stronger conservation efforts to make sure these animals stay around a long, long time.

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This epic zoo escape story shows how fantastically smart orangutans can be.

Fu Manchu was on the loose.

Adult male orangutans grow big jowls, like this gentleman from a German zoo. Photo by Oliver Lang/AFP/Getty Images.

Fu was an adult male orangutan who lived in the Omaha Zoo way back in the 1960s.

Though he was named after the villainous mastermind in Sax Rohmer's series of novels, Fu was anything but a villain. He was gentle and easy-going, the Omaha Zoo said in a flashback Facebook post.

"Fu, at a young age, would climb inside of the keeper's parkas as they were wearing them, slide his arms into the sleeves and play with the keepers," they wrote. "[Fu] even saved a curator who had slipped on a wet floor inside the exhibit."

One day, though, Fu caused quite a commotion by escaping from his enclosure.

When zookeepers came near his enclosure, they were shocked to find Fu sitting in a tree. Orangutans love to climb trees, yes, but the tree was outside his enclosure, over near the elephant barn. And he hadn't just escaped, he also brought his companion and three children along with him!

In the wild, orangutans often build bed-like nests in trees. Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images.

The keepers were able to guide Fu back to his enclosure, where they found an open, unlocked maintenance door. Head keeper Jerry Stones, assuming it was the fault of one of the keepers, gave his team a tongue-lashing.

Stones was willing to let the incident go. But then it happened again.

Just a few days later, the Fu Manchu family was spotted basking in the sun on a nearby rooftop outside the enclosure. The keepers managed, again, to get Fu back into his home. But this time, Stones was furious.

"I was getting ready to fire someone," he told Time magazine.

But a few days later, before anyone lost their job, one of Stones' staff noticed something: Fu Manchu was behaving weirdly.

It turned out that Fu had MacGuyver'd his own escape device.

As the staff watched, Fu Manchu ambled over to the dry moat in his enclosure that contained the maintenance door and climbed down some air vents to get to the bottom. Then, as they all watched, he proceeded to jimmy the door's latch with what looked like a homemade lock pick!

Keepers later found that the lock pick was a long piece of wire Fu had managed to find somewhere and bend into shape. Using it, he could unlatch the maintenance door from the outside.

What's more, the reason that nobody had been able to find it before was that Fu kept this lock pick a secret. He'd do it by hiding it in between his bottom lip and his gums between escape attempts, only pulling it out when the time was ripe.

Orangutans are tool masters, and Fu Manchu isn't the only orangutan who's shocked us with their smarts.

Probing for goodies is only one of the many clever things we've seen orangutans do. Photo by Colin Knowles/Flickr.

Another big male, Ken Allen, lived at the San Diego Zoo in 1985 and kept finding new ways to scale the walls. The zoo ultimately had to hire a team of rock climbers to climb-proof his enclosure. He even inspired a song, "The Ballad of Ken Allen."

Orangutans in the wild, meanwhile, have been seen using leaves as gloves, napkins, or megaphones. They build nests to sleep in every night. They've even been seen spearfishing.

For his efforts, Fu Manchu earned an honorary membership in the American Association of Locksmiths, according to The Seattle Times.

Fu passed away in 1992 and was survived by 20 children and 15 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The zoo still has orangutans today, although none have entered the history books quite like Fu and his ridiculous, amazing escape attempts.

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