LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A viral video is all over the internet of an orangutan at the Louisville Zoo.
It comes from a Louisville blogger, who decided to challenge an ape to the shell game. The result is amazing everyone.
Jamie Utley said he puts the annual zoo membership he bought to good use. "I come here almost every day, weather permitting, to get an exercise," he said. He documents what he sees in a blog on Facebook called Walking the Zoo for Healthy Living.
"Why walk on a treadmill, when you can walk the zoo," Utley said. Earlier this week, during one of those trips, he found himself a new mate — a new primate, that is.
He's seen Amber the orangutan hanging around, shoving her face and paying close attention to everyone who walks up to her window, so he wanted to try something different.
"I decide to bring cups and a ball to play the shell game, to see if I can beat her," Utley laughed, but she did beat him. Three times in a row on the video Amber correctly pointed to the red cup with the concealed the red ball.
"She got it right 100% of the time," said Utley.
As you might imagine, he went "all ape," and so did the internet. The video has gotten about a million likes and many quips.
"Most of the lines ... are you smarter than a monkey, or this monkey is smarter than a 5th grader," Utley said.
She even gave it another try for our WDRB News crew on this week, but Amber is no one trick pony — or orangutan.
"I always laugh when I cut through here and I see people emptying their pockets or their purses," said Steven Taylor, assistant director of Conservation at the Louisville Zoo.
Amber gets people to show what they've brought with them, and even picks what color zoo spokesperson Kyle Shepherd should paint her nails.
Amber loves choosing nail colors in the video below:Â
"She's one of the best trainers of people I've ever been around," Taylor joked.
Amber's love for the camera started when she was a baby. She's now 34, but back in the 90s, David Letterman loved Amber when Jack Hanna brought her to "Late Night."
Jack Hanna brought a baby Amber to meet Letterman in this video:Â Â
In a ten minute period Jack shows off some stinky orangatans, an alligator, a mouse, a skunk, a serval, some prarie dogs,a lion and a box of frogs. From around 1986.
It wasn't long before she showed Louisville Zoo staff her "personality," getting out of her enclosure one night by pushing back a screen over the enclosure. "They were able to break a piece of that and opened it up large enough to where she could get through it," Taylor explained.
They found her in a laundry room she could see from the habitat. "She was getting the soap out, trying to do the laundry."
Utley is excited to see what else she can do.
"I'm going to see if, over the next year, if I can get her to play chess," he said.
Clearly the sky — or maybe the top of her enclosure — is the limit for this smart animal.
Being quick and smart is in the DNA for apes. They become extremely aware of small movements, and what's going on around them to avoid predators.
Amber watches Chris Sutter empty his wallet in the video below:Â
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