Brawny Brunei
Body by nature…
Brunei’s growth spurt is normal for male orangutans. But it is still an amazing thing for keepers to behold. Nava Greenblatt, who has worked with Brunei since his birth at Brookfield Zoo, is clearly still amazed by his quick maturation. “Nothing looks the same except his eyes… Not his face… Not his body… Nothing…”
Brunei is big. He knows it, and he wants the other guys around to know it too.
Like a body builder on “muscle beach,” he can often be seen showing off his nearly 250 pounds of muscle. He stands in a window in front of the other burly males posing and doing anything he can to make himself look buff. The other guys have noticed and respond in kind. Let the pose-off begin!
But it has not always been that way.
Two years ago, Brunei was kind of gawky. He was a shy, pale 150-pound kid with thin red hair. But he was in his teenage years and just starting to fill out. Last June, even at 170 pounds he looked skinny, but he was already starting to sprout some serious facial hair. Fast forward to today, and you wouldn’t recognize him! Brunei is huge. Human teenage boys at Brunei’s age would be learning to shave. Luckily Brunei is an orangutan, because shaving is just not an option for him. Gone is the thin red hair. Today, like all adult males, he is a massive drape of long, thick, brightly colored hair. In the last year he has also added the prominent cheek pads (called phalanges), a throat sack, and a crest on top of his head, all of which mark him as an adult male. He has also developed a new attitude. He is more confident and wants all the other guys in Tropic World to know it.
Studies of orangutans in zoos show that the presence of adult males actually may slow down the maturation process of younger red apes. Some researchers believe that adult males might actually emit chemicals, called pheromones, that help to limit the growth of younger males. But at 14, Brunei could not be held back anymore (keepers saw the same thing with two other male orangutans, Pongo and Robin, at similar ages). This sort of rapid development has been seen in the wild too---but even faster! There are stories of some juvenile orangutans making similar changes over the course of a single week when the dominant males were removed from that portion of the forest.
The new Brunei is focused on different things these days. Play is less important. Instead he is very interested in Ben and Pongo, the other mature males. Sometimes he cannot be seen from the public portion of Tropic World because he is busy displaying for the other males in an obscured spot at the edge of the orangutan island. He will spend a lot of time in that spot, in front of windows that give him a view of the rest of the orangutans off-exhibit. Often he will lift objects like barrels to make himself look more fearsome. Brunei has even been “talking” differently, as he has learned some new vocalizations. On a couple of occasions he has let out a “long call” which is a way to claim territory and to announce himself to both females and other males within earshot. Long calls can carry for up to a kilometer through the forest. He has also developed a “rumble” which keepers describe as a deep guttural vocalization that often precedes the resonant, pulsing long call.
More...