Schiffman's ape (eremites hirsutus): a large, tailless Old World primate of the family Pongidae (disputed), found only in the Indonesian rain forests.
They had a departmental romance, Warden an associate professor and Lisa a graduate student. Part of her grant was met by caring for the laboratory animals, and their first meetings were in between cages by the night monkeys. Warden was doing three hours of behavioral observation a day and often Lisa would come and talk to him by the one-way glass as he watched the monkeys and scribbled onto his clipboard. She was very shy and at first they talked only monkeys. She had a tendency to humanize the animals' behavior, to anthropomorphize, that both annoyed and amused him. Lisa had nicknames for all the animals, even the lower forms, the rabbits and hamsters and white rats. She called all the crickets Jiminy. She talked softly to the animals as she handled them, as she fed them and watered them and injected them with massive doses of carcinogens. She thought the night monkeys were cute, especially the babies.
Warden had her in both his graduate-level courses. She was quiet but a very good student. He had noticed her right away, not so much for her face, plain and pale, but for her bottom. She had the most fantastic bottom, the kind Warden liked best, with a pronounced lordosis like the! Ko tribeswomen of the African bush that made it ride high and stick out invitingly. A black behind on a blond girl. Once or twice she had walked ahead of him on the campus and he had followed, past his destination, watching her bottom move in her pants. When Warden daydreamed about the girls in his classes, Lisa and her bottom were well up on his list.
Their first personal talks by the cages were about a boy she was seeing, an undergraduate, a star soccer player. It came out that the boy had problems with impotence, that Lisa held herself at fault. Warden drew on his experience to advise her. He advised her and his advice became reassurance and his reassurance, late one night on the floor between the rhesus and the scurrying lemurs, became demonstration.
It was an incredible semester. Warden and Lisa were at each other in between classes, before and after his observation periods, overnight and all weekend long. More than once the janitor found him asleep by the night monkeys, notes spilling from his lap. Warden lost so much sleep his boundaries began to blur, he would find himself reaching to squeeze Lisa's bottom out in public or when she came up at the end of class. She slept on her stomach, and he loved to pull the covers up so her cheeks were exposed, loved to knead and jiggle them while she mumbled nonsense through her dreams. She loved sleeping with him, he could tell, loved that he knew what to do and did it, loved just listening to him talk in class or in bed, hearing all the things he knew. It was an incredible semester and somehow his work didn't suffer.
Behavioral Observation — Platyrrhine (night) monkey (Aotes trivirgatus)
Lab study — Adult male C and adult female P in 6'x4' cage.
2:03 a.m. Male and female approach each other at center of cage. Social sniffing. Female lifts tail slightly as male sniffs her genital area.
2:05 Mutual grooming behavior, highly agitated.
2:07 Male mounts female from rear. Copulation, apparently successful. Three or four pelvic thrusts, ejaculation occurring on the last, long thrust, the lower part of the male's body quivering for a moment. Male dismounts.
2:10 Resume mutual grooming.
2:12 Male mounts female from rear, copulation, apparently successful. Dismounts.
2:14 Male and female run to opposite ends of cage. Male licks his genitals.
2:16 Male, uttering kiss-squeaks, approaches female. Mounts from side. Unsuccessful copulation. Dismounts.
2:19 Male climbs side of cage, uttering short barks. Drops behind female, who assumes submissive posture. Male mounts from rear, copulation, apparently successful. Dismounts. Mounts again immediately, copulation, apparently successful.
2:23 Mutual grooming behavior.
2:25-4:0o Repeated mountings and copulations, all apparently successful. Female remained receptive throughout. Mutual grooming behavior grew more and more perfunctory.
The ape is feeding on grapes in a vine-clogged tree. It eats slowly, methodically working its way from cluster to cluster. Suddenly the tree is alive with a group of gibbons. It is a family unit — adult male, mother with infant, two subadult females. The smaller gibbons try to scare the Schiff man's away. They feed in an exaggerated frenzy, swinging from branch to branch with breakneck speed, jamming grapes into their mouths, making extraloud chomping noises. Schiffman's ape ignores them. The gibbons swing faster, wilder, there seems to be a dozen of them buzzing through the tree.
"Look at him. He's not budging." Distant whispering, trading looks through the binoculars.
"It's only a display. This must be part of their usual range."
"Do you think it travels alone?"
"Seems like it. Could be like the orangutan, lone males are fairly common. Or maybe something has driven it a lot closer to the temple."
"Or maybe," says Lisa, "he just got lonely."
Warden shoots her a hard look.
"Sorry."
"Hopefully he'll lead us to others. We've got to figure out the bonding patterns."
"He's so woolly. More than the gibbons even. And those arms — "
"Travels mostly by brachiation, we can assume that right now. Glad I packed all those lens filters, we'll be shooting directly against the sky most of the time."
"What shall we name him?"
"Alpha. It's our first subject."
"No, I mean a real name."
Warden smiles indulgently. "Sure. Why not. Uhm — how about Esau?"
"Esau?"
"From the Old Testament. `Esau was an hairy man.' "
"I like it."
The gibbons slow, begin to feed regularly. Esau isn't moving.
There is a story that the people of the Indonesian lowlands tell about the orangutan, the 'man of the forest.' It takes place when all creatures, including men, had just been formed and sat in the forest waiting for the Creator to give them their natures. The Creator came down from the mountain and told them to gather round. To the bird He gave flight and song, to the leopard He gave strength and savagery, to the python stealth and cold-bloodedness. There were two men at that time, twin brothers named Simang and Jaru. By the time the Creator got to them He had run out of natures. So He said to them, "You will be complex creatures, I will let you choose one aspect from the natures of each of the other creatures. But you must choose together and agree on everything."
At first Simang and Jaru were in close agreement. They chose stealth from the python, strength from the leopard, quickness from the lizard, hot-bloodedness from the boar, and caution from the rodent. But when they considered the bird, Simang wanted its flight and Jaru wanted its song.
"With flight," said Simang, "I will soar in the air above all the other creatures, even the birds, and with my strength and cunning I will rule over them."
"But with song," said Jaru, "all the other creatures will hear what we have in our hearts and minds, and we will be understood."
They argued, and suddenly, with the strength of the leopard, Simang attacked Jaru and spilled his hot blood. The Creator intervened just in time to prevent a murder. He was very angry.
"For this act," he said to Simang, "you and your race will part from Jaru and his race, and you will be outcasts. You will soar in the air but never really fly, and will rule over only what you can reach with your long, grasping arms."
"Jaru, you and your race will be masters of 'the earth, but whenever you meet the descendants of Simang or the other creatures, you will sing, but none will understand."