Science: Schnozzles for Sea Lions

Comfortably established and drinking hot tea last week in the San Diego Zoo were a pair of proboscis monkeys from Borneo. Roxanne, the female, looks like an ordinary monkey, but Cyrano, the male, has a long, drooping, flexible nose that would make the fortune of a TV comedian. Perhaps Roxanne admires the nose, but it has no use except to give Cyrano’s cry a nasal, down-East twang.

Proboscis monkeys (Nasalis larvatus) are seldom seen outside Borneo. San Diego got its pair through G. Wyman Carroll of New Haven, a free-lance animal dealer who spotted a pair in the Surabaya Zoo. At first Surabaya demanded two camels in exchange, then asked for two llamas. Carroll made a counteroffer of two sea lions. Surabaya finally sent the two proboscis monkeys, two Sumatran gibbons, two black langurs and one Celebes phalanger. In return it got two sea lions, two ring-tailed and two spider monkeys, and two U.S. raccoons.