Watch This Orangutan Casually Don a Pair of Sunglasses Dropped by a Tourist

An orangutan at an Indonesian zoo became a TikTok sensation after casually styling a pair of sunglasses that a zoo visitor accidentally dropped in the enclosure. In the viral video, the orangutan picks up the fallen eyewear while cradling a baby ape and gingerly puts them on its head. 

Since the video was posted on TikTok in early August, it has racked up over 45 million views and 11 million likes.

The person who filmed it, 20-year-old Lolita Testu, told VICE that the entertaining encounter with the orangutan happened when she visited Taman Safari in the city of Bogor, Indonesia, with her boyfriend earlier in March. The couple now lives in San Francisco, California.

“He’s studying to be a primatologist so that’s why we were hanging around the orangutans for a long time,” she said in an interview this week.

When Testu tilted her head down to observe the orangutans, her sunglasses came loose and landed in their enclosure. And when the curious orangutan ventured to retrieve the sunglasses, Testu caught the hilarious episode on video.

For Testu, the virality of her TikTok video came out of the blue. When she first posted a snippet of the great ape trying on her sunglasses in March, the video did not gain nearly as much traction as the longer version she uploaded this month.

“I guess it was just super overwhelming [because] I’m not an influencer of any kind and I’ve never had to deal with anything like this before,” she said. Testu added that she and her boyfriend had no idea about licensing agreements but were forced to become experts overnight when they were approached by media companies requesting to publish the video.

After toying with the sunglasses, obviously intrigued by the tinted eyewear, the orangutan flung them back to the visitors in exchange for some leaves from a zookeeper, Testu’s video showed. The auburn ape who entertained visitors with her shady antics was called Pongi, she said.

The video has been met with incredulous comments about the intelligence of Pongi, as well as quips about its unbothered demeanor.

“She really said ‘BORING,’” one TikTok user wrote. 

The name orangutan translates to “man of the forest” in the Malay language. Recognized by their long arms, short legs, and reddish hair, orangutans are native to rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia. All three species of orangutans (Sumatran, Bornean, and Tapanuli) are now critically endangered.

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