. On more than one occasion, Bonnie, demonstrated a display of brachiating from branch to branch, and also up and down the gate against the glass. Orangutans are arboreal, meaning they are tree dwelling primates, so it is only natural instinctly and physically for them to brachiate throughout a tree- like structure. Orangutans have extremely large arms for their size, sometimes a seven- foot span (Galdkias, 1992), which makes it easier for them to utilize their arms in such a way. It was also shown through observation that they knuckle walk. The orangutans slid their hands, knuckles down on the floor to help them walk. When they walk, as stated in my research, (Napier, 1985), they walk on all fours shifting their wait to from side to side. However, they do have opposable big toes, which also makes them bipedal so they can walk on two legs. For the majority of their locomotion, they knuckle walk and waddle. Other than Junior’s outburst, the only one that remained active throughout the observation was Bonnie. She showed a lot of interest in what was going on outside of her home. She was in awe of many domesticated items such as lotion and lipstick. She made eye contact on more than one occasion that the others did not do. The only orangutan that ate something other than straw or hay was Kiko who was eating a banana before his afternoon nap. There were two smashed pumpkins on the ground, but it didn’t appear that they had been eating. Bonnie picked at one, but did not take a bite of the pumpkin. Bonnie continued to eat straw for the entire observation. Neither Iris nor Junior ate anything throughout the duration. This observation was not only educational, but gave me a chance to study the orangutans in a more objective point of view after researching the Pong pygmaeus. The orangutans were the most active out of all the apes located at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. I thoroughly enjoyed examining the behav...
