HOUSTON — The OG of the Houston Zoo celebrated his birthday on Thursday. Rudy Valentino, an orangutan, turned 45!
Rudi is the oldest male orangutan in North America, according to the zoo.
He's also the zoo's longest resident and they have the baby pictures to prove it. Rudi was only two months old when he arrived at the zoo in 1978.
His animal care team gave him his favorite treats and sang "Happy Birthday" to him! He enjoys all the attention from his keepers and foraging for treats.
“Rudi loves to play with his keepers and will call over and twitch his hand, which is his most obvious playful sign,” primate keeper Miriam Gordon said. “He will grab a piece of browse and poke at keepers and try to touch them. If he touches you, the best thing to do is act super dramatically and fall over. Rudi LOVES to do this and will keep poking at keepers and watching them closely.”
Apparently, Rudi is also quite the ladies' man. He likes to chill with Kelly, one of the zoo's female orangutans.
He's about 5 feet 4 inches with an arm span of 8 feet 2 inches.
Rudi rotates in the exhibit with other orangutans, including Cheyenne, a female that turned 50 in May.
Orangutan means “man of the forest” in Malay and Indonesian languages.
Orangutans are the only one of the four great apes (orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, and bonobo) not native to Africa. They live in the Southeast Asian islands of Borneo and Sumatra.
The Houston Zoo saves orangutans in the wild by providing support for local communities to replant forests in Borneo.
"Guests can do their part to save wild orangutans by using recycled paper products. They need trees to live, and by using less paper or recycled-content paper products, fewer trees are cut down," the zoo said.