My Town Monday: Happy Birthday Janey the Orangutan!

Janey the Bornean Orangutan at the San Diego Zoo (from google images)

Here in San Diego, we are inordinately proud of our zoo. We keep each up to date on zoo news, talking about the animals as though they're friends and neighbors.

"Did you hear Umngani is pregnant again?" (when one of our female elephants was in that condition for the 3rd time)

"Zhen Zhen took her first steps, and she's only 17 weeks." (baby Giant Panda)

"Someone just donated $15 million to the zoo?!" (local businessman Conrad Prebys)

Our current zoo news revolves around our super sociable, super artistic orangutan, Janey. She turned 50 on Friday!

Janey came to us in 1984. Apparently, she lived with Tom Jones, the singer, before that. This sounds only vaguely familiar, so I hope I'm not passing along false info.

Many, many moons ago, when Child #1 was much younger, we used to take picture books to the orangutan exhibit. Janey would amble over to watch Child #1 flip the pages. She's very visitor friendly, and you don't want to miss her if you're visiting our zoo.

Janey's nickname is Janey the Artistse. She loves to draw and paint. Some of her masterpieces have been auctioned off to raise money for the zoo.

Janey the Orangutan presents some of her artwork. (photo credit Vic Murayama, Smugmug.com)

And a few fun facts about orangutans:

-Orangutans are Great Apes (along with gorillas, chimps, bonobos and gibbons).
-Unlike other apes, orangutans don't live in troops, but are solitary. As a result, children stay longer with their moms (until the age of 8 years) in order to learn the ways of the world.
-Adult orangutans have the same number of permanent teeth as you (32).
-They are intelligent, use tools and have opposable thumbs.
-They are truly arboreal and spend all their time in the forest canopy.
-Females usually only have 3 offspring over the course of their life. Speaking from experience, this is quite wise. There are days when I find 4 quite the handful.
-Orangutans in capitivity live to be abou 59, so presumably we'll be celebrating Janey's birthday for years to come. ;)

Oh, and a bit of word trivia: Swinging from one branch to branch is called...brachiating.

Here's a link to the San Diego Zoo's ape webcam.

I'm this week's hostess. If you toss up a My Town Monday post, let me know here or on the official My Town Monday blog, and I'l set up your link.



http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-orangutan.html
http://local.sandiego.com/news/san-diego-zoo-receives-$15-million-donation
http://www.fox5sandiego.com/news/rss/kswb-zoo-orangutan-janey-the-artist-turns-50-20120217,0,5340528.storyhttp://rainy-z.xanga.com/photos/46aaf176268647/