The gorilla holds the slipper Photo: Sina Weibo

 A video of an orangutan voluntarily returning a visitor's slipper at a zoo in Weihai, East China's Shandong Province has gotten wide attention from Chinese netizens recently, winning netizens' applause after the orangutan returned a slipper which had fallen back to the tourist.

"It's awesome!" one netizen said. On July 31, a young tourist was watching the orangutan at the zoo when he accidently dropped a slipper into the region where the orangutan stayed. Then the zoo keeper was trying to use popcorns from a tourist to make an "exchange" for the slipper from the orangutan.   

The orangutan instinctively thought the dropped slipper was food at the beginning, an employee from the zoo said. It smelled the slipper and it didn't feel like food, because it ate different food normally such as fruit, eggs and meat, according to the employee.

When the orangutan saw the popcorns in its zoo keeper's hand, which was similar as the food it ate daily, plus the communication from the keeper, it threw the slipper back up to the keeper about two minutes later, the employee said.

The behavior of the orangutan won everyone's cheers on site.

Global Times