Every Day Is a New ExperienceEvery Day Is a New ExperienceEvery Day Is a New Experience

Animal care staff make sure no two days are the same for our apes. The animals are given different items and activities each day to encourage them to exercise their minds and bodies. We call this practice “enrichment.”

Enrichment includes the design of the animals’ spaces, who they

spend time with, and the objects, sounds, and smells around them.

It stimulates natural behaviors, allows animals to make choices

in their environments, and enhances their well-being.

What Enrichment Looks Like

We’re learning new things every day about our apes through our ongoing research projects. Learn more about these projects at the Zoo’s Think Tank.

Getting to Know Our Great Apes

Artistic AnimalsPainting is a favorite activity of many animals at the Zoo. It provides social interaction with keepers and engages the senses of sight, smell, and touch. Animals always choose whether or not they want to participate.

Kwame

Calaya

Mandara

Baraka

Kojo

Kibibi

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Freedom to CreateGorillas and orangutans use their fingers or, most often, a paintbrush to create their art. They are given a choice of colors, and each animal has its own technique and style. Some prefer to blot the paint while others move it around or layer one color onto another.

Batang

Kyle

Iris

Bonnie

Lucy

Kiko

The O-Line is our Orangutan Transit System. Vine-like cables linked to towers connect Great

Ape House and Think Tank. The orangutans can choose to leaveone building and walk or swing

along the “vines” to the other.

What’s the O-Line?

Look Up! Orangutans May Be on the O-LineLook Up! Orangutans May Be on the O-LineLook Up! Orangutans May Be on the O-Line

Wild Way to Pass the Time

In the wild, orangutans spend most of their life in trees. The O-Line expands

our apes’ choices in movement and location and lets them spend time up high, just as they would in the forest.

How Do the Apes Get Across?

Some of our orangutans brachiate (BRAY-kee-ate), swinging hand over

hand while crossing the O-Line. Most walk or shuffle along the cable,

holding on with two or more limbs.

Why Don’t They Fall?Orangutans are experts at moving safely amid forest canopies, whether they’re walking or brachiating. Their long fingers and toes can easily grasp branches and vines in the wild, as well as the O-Line cables at the Zoo.

When Can I See Them?Our orangutans are given access to the O-Line in the late morning and early afternoon most days, depending on the weather. It’s their choice if they want to travel; when and where, and even if, they’ll be on the O-Line is up to them.

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Not All Primates Are MonkeysThe Zoo is home to several monkey species, but you won’t find them in this building. Great apes—like our gorillas and orangutans—are NOT monkeys, though they’re often thought to be the same. The easiest way to tell monkeys and apes apart is to look for a tail. Nearly all monkeys have visible tails, and apes do not.

Humans belong to a group of mammals called primates. We’re most closely related to bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. Together, we make up a smaller group—called a “family”—of primates, known as great apes.

We’re All Part of the Great Ape Family

Where Can You Learn More?Visit the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History to learn more about how we’re related to other primates.

Primates at the ZooYou can see many other primates—such as gibbons, lemurs, and monkeys—here at the Zoo. Look for a list of our primates and where to find them on the informational sign to your right.

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What Makes Great Apes so “Great?”Great apes are named for their large body size. They also have larger, more complex brains than other primates. Compare the different ways primates and other animals use their brains at the Zoo’s Think Tank.

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