When the orangutan female Diri was born in our zoo, it took an infinite amount of time to succeed to determine her sex with certainty. I was afraid that in the case of this “velvet” baby it would also take a long time. Hopefully not months, but many weeks. But already on Thursday November 26 the keepers Vendula Hejná and Jitka Šedivá noticed that with high probability – almost on the edge of certainty – the baby is a male. Despite that we still decided to rather wait either for genetic tests or confirming photos or video.

So, it’s not that I went to the zoo in the morning of November 28 with a plan to take a photo, which would confirm the opinion of our keepers. I could at most have secretly hoped for that. And when I arrived at the place and watched our orangutan family picking up vegetables scattered around, I was even losing any hope for at least a usable shot of the little orangutan.

But then with the baby on her breast Mawar moved in the shadow among the stones in such a way that I caught quite a good view of her – though from distance. Then she bent her head towards the baby, so it looked as if they were whispering in each other’s ear, and in a moment, she raised it and put it on her head. She reminded me of a human parent, who is raising a toddler up high. During that I saw a baby’s bottom and realized that also all sorts of other things could be visible on the photos. I quickly took a few shots – the relatively best one you can see here. The “velvet” orangutan baby is a boy!