Azy (Orang-Utan)

Azy ( born December 24, 1977 in Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC ) is a male orangutan from the Great Ape Trust Research Center in Des Moines, Iowa, where he has been housed since September 2004. The animal was born in 1977 in Smithsonian National Zoological Park, and lived until 1980 at the zoo in Albuquerque.

Orangutan Language Project

1995 Rob Shumaker began in the so-called think tank of the Smithsonian 's Zoo with Azy and Indah his sister and two other orangutans a language project ( Orangutan Language Project) as part of a line of research on cognition in apes. It showed both cognitive skills that are exceptional for orangutans.

In tests for memory and problem-solving strategy Azy average consistently above average. Right at the beginning of the test He even managed to escape from his enclosure.

As a result, Azy and Indah were the only orang world who learned to communicate written with the help of symbols. 2003 dominated both 13 symbols. They could also refer to the number of objects with the numbers 1 to 3 and arrange them afterwards. After the death of Indah in 2004 Azy is the only living orangutan with these skills. The orangutan Chantek however, learned about 100 words of sign language.

Using a computer program developed for the primates Azy used today more than 70 icons for various objects, including food, people, and other orangutans. Azy also presented to prove that he is able to understand the perspective of other individuals.

Azy is in an episode of the BBC documentary series Nature: Extraordinary Animals portrays in detail. He weighs about 270 pounds and has an arm span of about 2.5 m.