"I remember seeing one at the zoo. Of all the animals, it seemed the smartest." Zhao Yiyi recalled. "It would calmly lock eyes with visitors, with the kind of gaze people used when sizing each other up."
"What you saw might not have been the same one." Song He smiled faintly and turned a page of the documents.
Zhao Yiyi was immediately confused. The illustration on the second page was also a red-haired gorilla. Aside from having a slightly smaller face, it looked completely identical.
"Experimental Animal No. 2, the Sumatran Orangutan. It belongs to the same genus, Pongo, in the family Hominidae. It's a different subspecies from the Borneo Orangutan we just discussed," Song He explained.
"The Sumatran Orangutan is slightly more intelligent than the Borneo Orangutan. It can use branches to build simple shelters against the rain, and there have even been cases of it gathering medicinal herbs and applying them to its wounds. It can also skillfully dig into termite mounds. It's critically endangered as well!"
Song He continued turning pages.
A pitch-black giant appeared on the document page, its muscles bulging.
"Eastern Lowland Gorilla. Suborder Catarrhini, parvorder Catarrhini, superfamily Hominoidea, family Hominidae!" Song He introduced.
"Gorillas in movies look savage, but in reality, they're gentle herbivores. Their intelligence is inferior to that of red-haired gorillas, but when crossing marshes, they'll still use sticks to test the water's depth, which shows they're fairly intelligent."
Song He turned two more pages. "There's also the Mountain Gorilla and the Western Gorilla. They're close relatives with slight differences in appearance. If you observe them carefully, you can tell them apart."
Zhao Yiyi looked bewildered. She seemed about to speak, but in the end, she only nodded and tried to skim through the documents quickly.
He continued turning pages.
"The next