Danish Zoo Created ‘Tinder For Orangutans’

Ah, modern love. It’s more about swiping than romancing these days. Just ask the female orangutans at the Apenheul Primate Park in Denmark. In an effort to help behavioral biologists gain insight into how female orangutans make mating choices, they are showing a female orangutan potential mates on an iPad to see if she will choose one in order to improve her mating chances. Samboja, an 11-year-old adult orangutan who is currently single, scrolls through images of possible suitors on an iPad app named “Tinder for Orangutans.” (We’re a little disappointed in the name, especially when “Pri-dates” was right there.) If she seems to prefer one over another, the zoo’s team will send for that potential mate to come over from an international zoo for a date. One problem with the “Tinder” program is they haven’t found an orangutan-proof tablet yet; when Samboja was handed an iPad, she immediately destroyed it, no doubt because one of her Tinder matches sent a rude text. We’ve all been there.