Name: Arun Rangsi (a Thai Buddhist name meaning “The Rising Sun of Dawn”)     ADOPT ME!
Sex: Male
Born: August 9, 1979
Favorite food: Plums (though he never met a Fig Newton he didn’t like).
Favorite activity: Sitting high in his totem-pole-shaped wire mesh tower and monitoring IPPL’s gibbon yard.

Arun Rangsi is IPPL’s first rescued research gibbon. He was born at the Comparative Oncology Laboratory of the University of California at Davis. Sadly, his own mother rejected him, so he was placed with a substitute “mother” made of wire. He was given the number HLA-98, which was tattooed in blue on his chest.

During his first year of life, tiny HLA-98 had pneumonia twice and dysentery twice. He experienced dangerous episodes of weight loss. He constantly banged his head, a symptom of chronic psychological stress.

Then fate took a positive turn for HLA-98. The laboratory lost its government funding and had to send its gibbons elsewhere. The lab director was reduced to cleaning his own gibbon cages. HLA-98 came to IPPL’s Headquarters Sanctuary on his second birthday and was given the beautiful Thai Buddhist name Arun Rangsi.

At IPPL, he was able to play with a couple of other rescued lab gibbons, Helen and Peppy, when they arrived the following year. He gradually stopped banging his head. And eventually he was paired with a mate—easy-going Shanti, another lab gibbon. They had a number of children together; surprisingly, given his tragic early history, he turned out to be a wonderful father. At IPPL, he was allowed to have the normal family life he was denied in the lab.

We eventually vasectomized Arun Rangsi, after we realized that he and Shanti were actually capable of having plenty of kids. Most of his children (all grown up now) still live within earshot of their parents. But Arun Rangsi and Shanti still live together and enjoy plenty of quality time with each other.

You can read more about Arun Rangsi over the years in our newsletter archives:

• The rebirth of Arun Rangsi (1982)
• Arun Rangsi is doing well (1982)
• Arun Rangsi is 20 years old! (1999)
• Arun Rangsi starts his 20th year with IPPL! (2001)
• Arun Rangsi–25 years with IPPL (2006)
• Arun Rangsi: 30 years with IPPL (2011)