Name: Blackie
Sex: Male
Born: 1958 (estimated)
Favorite food: Raisin bread.
Favorite activity: Dancing.

Blackie and his late mate Penny arrived at IPPL with their infant daughter E.T. in November 1984 from the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP) of the New York University Medical Center. They had been in research for over two decades and were also the parents of Shanti, another IPPL gibbon, who had been sent here the previous year.

Penny passed on in 2006 when around 50 years of age, but Blackie is still extremely active. Some of us call him “The Lord of the Dance!” Sometimes he’ll do an excited quick-stomping Riverdance routine. He also likes to do a “blind ballerina” dance, twirling around with his arms flung in the air, eyes (mostly) closed. He also likes playing with Northie, our big Newfoundland dog, running back and forth along the length of Blackie’s enclosure and then reaching through the wire mesh to give Northie’s long, shaggy fur a good tug! In March 2010, we placed Blackie with another gibbon female “of a certain age” by the name of Chloe. The two of them have a great time playing and wrestling together.

Although he is deaf, his disability has never interfered with his quality of life. If Blackie is hanging out indoors, our senior caregiver Donetta will bang on the walls of the attached wire mesh runway so that the vibrations will notify him that lunch is being served outside.

We’ve noticed that, when he sings, his vocalizations are deeper and less controlled than those of regular male gibbon calls, but he still often whoops along with the other gibbons when he sees them singing—he must read gibbon lips. In fact, our caregiver Hardy still remembers a “Helen Keller moment” he had with Blackie a few years ago. Blackie was singing along with the other gibbons when Hardy came over to visit and pursed his own lips as though joining in with the song. Suddenly, Blackie stopped singing, came over, and carefully placed the back of his hand right on Hardy’s mouth. Hardy started hooting for real so that Blackie could feel the vibrations, and Blackie kept his hand there on Hardy’s mouth for several minutes.

Who needs sign language?