Male Orangutan Attempts To Bite His Baby's Head

If you ever needed proof of just how closely we are related to apes, then this video should do the trick. Shot in the orangutan enclosure in the Twycross zoo in the UK, a baby orangutan tried showing a little bit of sass, but got interrupted by none other than his fearsome dad.

The male borneo orangutan Batu is following his son Basuki through the outdoor enclosure. He keeps trying to grab his son, but his son is getting away. Basuki is tumbling and stumbling and then climbs the net. He is not out of reach, so Batu pulls his son down. When the big male opens his mouth it looks quite scary with his big teeth showing as if he wants to bite the little babies head.

He then carries Basuki away, until Basuki wiggles free again and is trying once more to get away. Dad follows and grabs him again by his little arms and drags him and pushes him inside the door.

Batu was very determined to get his son inside and Basuki really didn't want to go. He did manage in the end, but it wasn't long before Basuki escaped again and came outside heading for the climbing net. When Batu came out again, little Basuki quickly headed for his mom.

Did you know that orangutans have the slowest known life histories of any mammal on the planet? Basically, they take their sweet time growing up and they take even more time to reproduce. Baby orangutans depend on their moms for the first two years of their lives, hanging onto them for transport until they are as old as 5 years of age. They can even breastfeed on their mom’s milk until they are 8! When they get too old or too big to be carried around, they still stick to their moms by holding hands, which is called buddy travel. Orangutan dads almost never take part in the upbringing of their young, so seeing this kind of interaction between dad Batu and naughty boy Basuki is quite rare.

Twycross Zoo was established in 1963 by Molly Badham and Nathalie Evans, two women from Evesham in Worcestershire who started handling wild animals in their respective pet shops.

Ms. Badham became an expert of primates in captivity, providing chimps for as a way to raise funds for the zoo. One of her primate protegees even went on to become a movie star, appearing in a Hammer Horror film with Peter Cushing.

Twycross Zoo now houses around 500 animals of almost 150 species, including many endangered ones. It is renowned as a “specialist primate zoo” and is the only zoo in the United Kingdom to exhibit all four types of great ape: bonobo, chimpanzee, orangutan and gorilla. Twycross currently houses 13 bonobos, 20 chimps, four orangutans and five gorillas. About 37% of their animal collection is classed as near threatened, vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered by the IUCN. Many of their animals are part of conservation breeding programs which help ensure a future for species threatened with extinction.