Now, this is some underwater monkey business.
A 7-year-old orangutan named Suryia is living the life aquatic, training to become one heck of a swimmin’ simian in a South Carolina animal preserve.
“He absolutely loves it,” gushed his trainer, Moksha Bybee.
Suryia began swimming three years ago, when he began paddling around with a life jacket in a 10-foot-deep pool.
He’s gotten better and better. And since he shed the life jacket, he can swim up to 20 feet on his own.
“Suryia’s learning curve has been incredible,” said Bybee, who has also taught tigers to swim.
“He kicks off the side of the pool and makes his way to a target, such as myself or the poolside ladder, that he can see within his range of swimming ability . . .
“His favorite thing is to dive into the water on my back. And when I surface, he pulls at me almost to say, ‘Again! Again!’ ”
Suryia’s first experience being immersed in water was in a bathtub.
“Over the course of a few months, I would raise the level of the water after Suryia seemed to enjoy the feeling he got splashing around,” Bybee said.
“The natural progression was to take him to the pool when he was around 3 years old.”
Orangutans were once thought to be non-swimmers — one drowned in a Toronto zoo in 1998.
But several years ago, scientists observed them splashing around with the fish in their natural habitat in Borneo, where they paddle across rivers to gather fruit.
Suryia lives at The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species, a wildlife refuge in Myrtle Beach, SC.