I don’t always face extinction due to poaching and slash and burn agriculture, but when I do, I place relatives in zoos the world over, keeping them safe until humans stop being idiots.

The term “brachiation”, from “brachium”, the Latin for “arm”, is used to describe the tendency of some apes to swing from tree limb to tree limb using only their arms.

This term is used because “wheeeeeeee” was deemed insufficiently scientific for publication.

How to reduce those unsightly under-eye wrinkles:

1) Wear sunscreen
2) Don’t smoke
3) Get enough sleep
4) Avoid becoming a gorilla

When you look closely, most animals aren’t actually grey.

That is a leaf.

There are many like it.

But that one will be mine!

“You’re not going to entire cookie by yourself, are you?”

Everyone gets itchy sometimes.

The orangutan’s biggest threats come from humans destroying their habitat, kidnapping them for the pet trade, and occasionally eating them (and in at least one particularly horrifying case, the sex trade).

Alas, they can’t do anything about any of this, so they defend themselves against the bogyman instead.

The lemur grows to meet the size of its post.

You don’t see Madagascar giant jumping rats in many places.

As you can see, they ran out of the proper sized eyes.

What’s black and white and green all over … inside?

This is an example of the marmoset roaming free. I was lucky that this little guy decided to come down from the trees and spend a good fifteen seconds posing on this fence for me.

There is a scene in a much later book by a much older Gerald Durrell.

He wrote about what it was like to be old and tired. He was done with journeys. He had achieved his dream.

As he wrote, he sat in the manor house, looking over the land and thinking about all he had done in his life to save animals … first one creature at a time, now, managing entire species.

He wrote about how he had international foundations assisting his goals, young zookeepers helping out, and his friends and family all working on helping to keep things running smoothly.

He closed the book by describing his new home, surrounded by the living memories of a life well spent, and what it was like to finally rest and look out the window at the crowned cranes performing mating displays thousands of kilometers from their natural home, but still, living their lives.

I like to think that this is what he saw.

This lemur suddenly realized that there is little more indicative of the systemic failure of the American mental health system than the fact that the only therapist that Charlie Brown can afford is the same person who constantly bullies him in football.