Kaleb, a young male bonobo at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens appears to "floss" his teeth with twine. Bonobos are known to play games with their faces: twisting their mouths into weird expressions, wiggling their tongues, touching their gums, pulling down a lip, or reaching around their heads with a hand to pull at a mouth corner.
Once, a young bonobo I was caring for in Kinshasa managed to capture a fly. He carried it delicately around in pursued lips, almost as if he enjoyed the tickle of buzzing wings in his mouth. When I looked to see the source of the sound, he curled his lips in a smirk, still holding the fly, as if to say, "How handsome am I!"
Photo by M. Brickner
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