Tornado is the son of Tiara and estimated to be born in January 2015. Tornado and his mom live South of the Suaq research area and only occasionally come to visit us, but when they do it is quite the spectacle!

Tornado has long, windswept hair on his head that grows in all directions. He is quite shy when his mom and he meet the other orangutans at Suaq. He rarely initiates play with other infants and it takes quite a lot of persuasion to make him play. We think this might be because Tiara is only visiting the Suaq area and does not seem to be properly integrated in the social network of the other resident females.

However, despite being followed rarely, Tornado is very curious and very interested in people. He does not perform any displays at the observers, but we often see him slowly approaching and staring at us. Of course, this is not what we want and by moving away from him and turning our backs to him, we hope that he will soon find us boring and continue on with his normal activities.

Tornado is a funny little guy who likes to twirl and fool around. He is very attached to his mother Tiara and always makes sure that his distance from her is not too large. While other infants his age like to practice moving from one tree to the next by themselves, Tornado still lets himself be carried by Tiara. The only exception to this is when Tornado’s older sister Trident visits them and he forgets all his fears and concerns and plays with her giddily.

Tornado is a sweet little boy and we hope to get to see more of him over the upcoming years.