Perth Zoo’s alpha male orangutan, Hsing Hsing, apparently has a thing for redheads, and he doesn’t draw the line at his own species. Hsing Hsing has a harem of in-house girlfriends, but his roving eye means he’s always on the lookout for attractive flame-haired females among the humans who come to see him. Not only have zookeepers noticed that he stares at such visitors, he’s also ripped out pictures of Nicole Kidman from magazines put in his enclosure. Orangutans in the enclosure typically toss the paper around, but Hsing Hsing pulls out pictures of the Hollywood superstar to keep. He demonstrates other behaviors rarely seen in orangutans. He’ll share his food with his best friend Utama, a 35-year-old female orangutan with whom he has a purely platonic relationship. The behavior is touching, since orangutans are highly food-motivated. Primate supervisor Holly Thompson explained that because Hsing Hsing is a diabetic, they need to know what food he’s eating. “If he misses some, we supplement it with some more, and so Utama knows how to work him,” said Thompson.
