The story of Lady Wonder began in 1925, when her owner, Mrs. Claudia Fonda of Richmond, Va., noticed that the horse she had purchased when it was two weeks old—then just called Lady— would come when Fonda was merely thinking of calling her. Fonda wondered if the horse could read her mind, she told LIFE. By the time Lady was two years old the horse had been taught to spell out words by using blocks with letters on them. When Lady correctly predicted the winner of the Dempsey-Tunney boxing match, the fame of what Fonda billed as “The Mind-Reading Horse” began to spread.

Lady Wonder’s first appearance in LIFE came in 1940, when the magazine, as part of a larger story on ESP, related the history of the horse but also reported that it had lost its extra-sensory special powers. The horse could still perform simple mathematics, though, and was at that point merely being billed as “The Educated Horse,” with claims of clairvoyance left by the wayside. Still, the story noted that its ESP expert believed the horse once posessed special powers.

Then in 1952 Lady Wonder returned to the spotlight when she seemingly offered insight to a tragic case involving a missing boy. Here’s how LIFE described her contribution in its issue of Dec. 22, 1952:

A friend of the district attorney of Norfolk County, Mass., went to see her, on a hunch, to ask her for news of a little boy who had been missing for months. She answered, “Pittsford Water Wheel.” A police captain figured out that this was a psychic misprint for “Field and Wilde Water Pit,” an abandoned quarry. Sure enough, that is where the boy’s body was found.

The incident brought national attention to Lady Wonder, and among those who made the pilgrimage to her Virginia farm was LIFE photographer Hank Walker. He captured the mare, then 27 years old, in action, dispensing advice and sports predictions. (For the specific college football picks from Lady Wonder mentioned in the article, the horse was right on only one out of three picks).

Not everyone was buying the act. In 1956 the magician Milbourne Christopher, who was a noted debunker of frauds, visited Lady Wonder’s stable and concluded that the horse was spelling out words under the subtle guidance of Fonda, who was directing Lady Wonder on which blocks to select.

Lady Wonder died the next year.

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“Lady Wonder,” a horse with the purported ability to see the future, came in from the pasture to answer questions for her customers, Richmond, Va., 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mrs. Julius Bokkon regularly visited Lady Wonder to solicit the opinion of the clairvoyant horse on matters in her life, Richmond, Va., 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lady Wonder, the purported clairvoyant horse, gave a Massachusetts businessman direction on where to get a loan, spelling out “Heancock,” which was interpreted to mean the insurance company John Hancock, 1952.

Hank Walker/LIfe PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

The tricks of Lady Wonder included performing addition; here she had been asked what 7+6 equalled (she had already pulled up a “1” that is out of view to the left), Richmond, Va., 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Owner Claudia Fonda stood by as her clairvoyant talking horse tourist attraction, Lady Wonder, gave a Massachusetts businessman direction on where to get a loan, spelling out “Heancock,” which was interpreted to mean the insurance company John Hancock, 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/LIfe PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Lady Wonder, a horse with supposed clairvoyant powers, attracted visits from tourists and well as regulars such as Mrs. Julius Bokkon, Richmond, Va., 1952. The levers around the horse were like keys in a giant typewriter that it used to communicate its messages.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Meet Lady Wonder, the Psychic Horse Who Appeared Twice in LIFE appeared first on LIFE.

Hippos are the third largest mammal on the planet, behind only the elephant and the white rhino. But there is a variety of hippo known as the pygmy hippo that is tiny by comparison, especially when it is very young. And that makes the animal a natural curiosity. Witness the popularity of Moo Deng, a pygmy hippo who lives in a Thailand zoo and became a viral sensation in 2024.

The editors of LIFE shared the fascination.

The magazine’s June 2, 1941 issue included a story headlined “World’s Smallest Hippopotamus Arrives in U.S. From Liberia.” The pygmy hippo in question had been abandoned by its mother, found by Liberian natives and turned over to a man named Silas E. Johnson, who worked in Liberia and was an amateur zoologist.

Johnson then sailed to New York City for his “biannual three-month vacation in the U.S,” according to LIFE, and brought the baby hippo with him. When the hippo arrived in America, he was two months old, weighed nine pounds, was 18 inches long, and had acquired the name Skipper during the course of his sea journey. Legendary LIFE staff photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt was there to capture the magic.

LIFE explained exactly what made Skipper so precious:

The rarity of Mr. Johnson’s pet lies in the fact that pygmy hippopotamuses, found only in Liberia, are stalwart fighters which fiercely protect their young….When he is full-grown, Skipper will weight about 400 pounds. Normal hippos weight 30 pounds at birth, three tons at maturity.

While Skipper was rare, he was not entirely unique. In 1952 LIFE featured another pygmy hippo that had come to the U.S. This little fellow was named Gumdrop, and he and his zookeeper were photographed for the magazine by George Skadding. Unlike Skipper, Gumdrop came to the U.S. in the company of his mother.

How rare is a pygmy hippopotamus? Outside of zoos, the animal’s primary habitat remains in Libera and other neighboring West African countries. According to an estimate in 2015, only about 2,500 pygmy hippos remain alive in the wild.

This rare baby pygmy hippopotamus, named Skipper, was abandoned by his mother in Liberia and brought to the U.S. by boat in 1941 in the company of an amateur zoologist.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This rare baby pygmy hippopotamus, named Skipper, was abandoned by his mother in Liberia and brought to the U.S. by boat in 1941 in the company of an amateur zoologist. Skipper needed to be kept wet to prevent his skin from peeling.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This rare baby pygmy hippopotamus, named Skipper, was abandoned by his mother in Liberia and brought to the U.S. by boat in 1941 in the company of an amateur zoologist.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Amateur zoologist Silas E. Johnson brought this baby pygmy hippopotamus abandoned by his mother from Liberia to the U.S.; during the boatride from Africa to New York, the hippo acquired the nickname Skipper.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This baby pygmy hippopotamus, abandoned by his mother in LIberia and brought to the U.S. by an amateur zoologist, consumed a half-pint of condensed milk and pablum from a bottle four times a day, 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A baby pygmy hippo named Gumdrop received a bath, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A baby pygmy hippo named Gumdrop and his mother, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A zookeeper administered a bath to Gumdrop, a baby pygmy hippo, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gumdrop, a baby pygmy hippo, was toweled off by a zookeeper following his bath, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gumdrop, a baby pygmy hippo, fed with his mother, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Before Moo Deng: Little Hippos in LIFE appeared first on LIFE.

Early in his first term as president, Lyndon B. Johnson found himself caught up in a scandal involving his family’s beagles, named Her and Him. The trouble started when the President was welcoming a group of business leaders at the Rose Garden, and he lifted one of the family pets by its ears, causing the dog to cry out. Johnson then commented, “It does them good to let them yelp.”

The ear-pulling was captured by an Associated Press photographer, and plenty of dog lovers became upset at the President. At this link you can see the photo, as well as audio of Johnson talking about how a senator brought up the ear-pulling during negotiations with Congress over the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

After that incident Johnson’s beagles soon appeared on the cover of LIFE’s June 19, 1964 issue. The story aimed to show that, despite the ear-pulling incident, Her and Him were enjoying life under the Johnson Administration. “Not many dogs have been privileged to shoo birds off the White House lawn, get underfoot at a cabinet meeting or mingle with dignitaries at a State Ball,” LIFE wrote. “Certainly no dogs in all the world have the Bouquet Room as their private boudoir.”

LIFE staff photographer Francis Miller was given great access to Him and Her, and he came to the White House prepared to make the most of it. An animal lover himself, Miller brought a full assortment of treats and amusements to get the beagles on his side. Here’s how LIFE described the shoot:

Too wise in the ways of puppies to believe that affection alone would produce good photographs, Miller stretched himself out on the White House lawn, alternately barked like a dog, tossed a bone in the air, plied the beagles with his Yummies, huffed into the harmonica and joggled the toy bird in his left hand. This left him free to shoot the cover with his right hand and his right eye.

The story stated that Him and Her were primarily the pets of LBJ’s daughter Luci, who was 16 years old at the time. And she was not the beagles’ only caretaker. Miller took several photos of the dogs in the company of Thraphes Bryant, who in addition to being the White House electrician helped look after the dogs.

The affection between Bryant and the beagles was clear in Miller’s photos. And Bryant tended to many First Dogs during his career. He would write a memoir about it, titled “Dog Days at the White House: The Outrageous Memoirs of the Presidential Kennel Keeper.”

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s pet beagles, Him and Her, on the White House lawn, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Him and Her, pet Beagles of President Lyndon B. Johnson, sitting together on lawn of White House, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Him and Her, pet Beagles of President Lyndon B. Johnson, in a White House sitting room, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

President Lyndon B. Johnson, along with his daughter Luci Baines Johnson (left) and her friend Warri Lynn Smith (center), played with the family beagles, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

President Lyndon B Johnson’s beagles at the White House, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lyndon Johnson’s beagles, Him and Her, at the White House, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Him and Her, the beagles belonging to the Lyndon B. Johnson family, made sport of an old overshoe in the White House living quarters, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lyndon Johnson’s beagles, Him and Her, at the White House, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Thraphes Bryant, in addition to being White House electrician, helped care for the beagles of Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

White House electrician Thraphes Bryant helped care for LBJ’s beagles, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Thraphes Bryant, in addition to being White House electrician, helped care for the beagles of Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE photographer Francis Miller took photos of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s beagles, Him and Her, on the White House lawn, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post The First Beagles Whose Ears LBJ Just Had to Tug appeared first on LIFE.

The following is adapted from LIFE’s new special issue on bears, available at newsstands and online:

Globally, bear populations are plummeting, with several species designated as endangered or vulnerable to extinction. But in many parts of North America, people are seeing more bears than ever. Since the 1970s, American bears in the lower 48 states have been expanding their territories, and enthusiasts need not travel into dense forests to spot a black bear or grizzly. Many can just look into their backyards. In the early ’70s, there were fewer than 100 black bears in New Jersey; today there are about 3,000 and they have been found in every county in the Garden State. 

Over the past several decades, Americans have been cutting down more forests and developing commercial properties on lands that have long belonged to bears. With less space to roam, bears are becoming our new next-door neighbors, taking dips in swimming pools, lounging in hammocks, and rifling through garden sheds. Their hijinks, often caught on camera, attract millions of views on social media and portray bears as approachable and playful. But they are still predators, whose tolerance of humans has its limits. “The victim wasn’t off walking in the woods,” Charlie Rose reported in a 2014 CBS News program about a woman in Florida mauled by a bear. “She was attacked in her own suburban yard.” She survived, with 10 stitches and 30 staples to the head.

Since 1960, Florida’s human population has increased from 5 million to more than 22 million. To accommodate this surge, 7 million acres of forest and wetlands have been destroyed for new homes. So it might have been the woman’s backyard, but to the bear, it was also his.

If you find yourself in bear country, which today could be deep in Yosemite or just off New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway, there’s plenty of advice to avoid conflicts. If you encounter a bear, dispensing a canister of bear spray at the animal is more effective than any air horn or sound. While you’re urged to carry it in certain national parks, the product could be dangerous if not used according to its directions. In 2022, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation tweeted: “Listen, bear spray DOES NOT work like bug spray. We would like to not have to say that again.”

Most bears will avoid humans if they hear them coming, but if a bear has noticed you, the U.S. National Park Service provides some general tips: Stand still and identify yourself as a human by talking calmly and slowly waving your arms, so the bear doesn’t mistake you for a prey animal. “It may come closer or stand on its hind legs to get a better look or smell,” notes the park service’s website. “A standing bear is usually curious, not threatening.” 

Hike and travel in groups, as a collection of people are usually noisier—and smellier—than a lone person. A bear is more likely to notice your group and stay away. And remember that bears get more confident and linger when human food is involved. Keep your fare away and hidden; otherwise it could encourage a bear. If the bear is stationary, move away slowly and sideways. This movement allows you to keep an eye on the bear while avoiding tripping. Plus, moving sideways is non-threatening to bears.

Ultimately, stay calm and remember that most bears don’t want to attack you—they just want to be left alone. A bear woofing, yawning, growling, or snapping their jaws may just be bluffing their way out of a potential encounter. Continue to talk to the bear in low tones, keeping it calm until it leaves. Wild animals are dangerous and can be enjoyed from a distance, and hopefully that distance will widen after decades of encroachment on each other’s turf. And those who live on the periphery of their habitats know that the beauty of bears is worth protecting.

Here is a selection of images from LIFE’s new special issue on bears.

Alatom/Getty Images

Teddy Roosevelt’s act of kindness toward a bear during a 1902 hunt was the seed what would become known as the “teddy bear.”

Getty Images

Brown bears are the most widely distributed bear species in the world, and are found in northern North America, Europe and Asia.

Mari Perry/500px/Getty Images

Brown bear cubs, after being protected by their mother early in life, often briefly stay with their littermates before going on to lead independent lives.

Getty Images

When salmon migrate upriver, bears gather for a hearty meal.

© Gerald and Buff Corsi / Focus on Nature/Getty Images/iStockphoto

For polar bears, climate change is threatening their way of life.

© PAUL SOUDERS | WORLDFOTO/Getty Images

The koalas of Australia look like bears but are in fact marsupials.

B.S.P.I./Corbis Documentary/Getty Images

Bears’ teeth are similar to humans, with broad, flat molars that can be used to grind food.

Irena Anna Sowinska/Getty Images

The post Bears: Strong, Wise, and Increasingly Among Us appeared first on LIFE.

It is, without question, one of the most famous, most frequently reproduced animal photographs ever made. But photographer Hansel Mieth‘s own attitude toward her 1938 portrait of a sodden rhesus monkey hunched in the water off of Puerto Rico was, to put it bluntly, conflicted. In fact, the German-born Mieth (1909-1998) memorably called the creature in the picture “the monkey on my back.”

As Mieth explained in a 1993 interview with John Loengard, published in his book, LIFE Photographers: What They Saw, she made the photograph while covering a Harvard Medical School primate study on tiny Cayo Santiago, off the east coast of Puerto Rico:

One afternoon all the doctors were away [Mieth told Loengard], and a little kid came running to me and said, “A monkey’s in the water.”

I came down, and that monkey was really going hell-bent for something. . . . I threw my Rolleiflex on my back and swam out. Finally, I was facing the monkey. I don’t think he liked me, but he sat on that coral reef, and I took about a dozen shots.

When she got back to New York, Mieth learned that the joke around the LIFE offices was that she’d produced a striking portrait of Henry Luce, the founder and publisher of TIME, LIFE, Fortune and other magazines: evidently, some of her colleagues felt that the rhesus in the water looked like their boss. When asked by Loengard, six decades later, if she felt the portrait did resemble Luce, Mieth was diplomatic.

I didn’t see Luce that much. He had lots of other things to do rather than talk with photographers. . . . But I suppose it does, in a way. It all depends on what kind of mood you are in. To me it looks like the monkey’s depicting the state of the world at the time. It was dark and somber and angry. There were a lot of dark clouds swirling around. I heard from many people that they were scared when they looked at it.

Today, the monkey on Mieth’s back still commands our gaze, inviting us perhaps challenging us to project our own fears, anxieties and speculations on to a picture, and a primate, that never gets old.

FINAL NOTE: While a half-dozen lesser pictures from the assignment in Puerto Rico were published in the Jan. 2, 1939, issue of LIFE, Mieth’s now-iconic monkey photo appeared a few weeks later, in the Jan. 16 issue accompanied by the caption, “A misogynist seeks solitude in the Caribbean off Puerto Rico.”

According to the magazine, a primatologist explained that “the chatter of innumerable female monkeys had impelled this neurotic bachelor to seek escape from the din” by fleeing the jungle and making his way into the waves.

Seventy-five years later, that particular theory about how and why the rhesus was out there in the water still sounds as reasonable as any other.

Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com

A rhesus monkey in Puerto Rico, 1938.

Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A baby rhesus monkey climbed on the chest of Michael Tomlin, a primatologist who cared for a rhesus colony in Humacao, Puerto Rico, 1938.

Hansel Mieth/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This photo, which ran at a full page in LIFE in 1939, was labelled “Rhesus: Life Size” to show readers how small the monkeys were.

Hansel Mieth/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A rhesus monkey ate a flower in Humacao, Puerto Rico, 1939

Hansel Mieth/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A rhesus monkey searched for food in Cayo Santiago, Humacao, Puerto Rico, 1938.

Hansel Mieth/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rhesus monkeys searched for food on Cayo Santiago, Humacao, Puerto Rico, 1938.

Hansel Mieth/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Behind the Picture: Hansel Mieth’s Wet, Unhappy Monkey appeared first on LIFE.

The following is from LIFE’s new special issue Apes: Their Remarkable World, available at newsstands and online:

Two rangers quietly sat on a platform 25 feet up in a tree with a large pile of bananas and red buckets filled with milk. As I watched, a dozen orangutans quickly climbed and swung over to grab the fruit and stick their heads in the buckets for a drink. The orange-haired apes then lounged around, undisturbed by the humans alongside them. 

Half a mile further into Borneo’s Kabili-Sepilok rainforest it was much less hectic. The air felt humid. I could smell the earth and hear the droning sound of cicadas filling the forest as I avoided the leeches dropping from above. Up ahead I spied another feeding platform. The rangers there sat alone as they scanned the trees but saw no signs of orangutans eager to eat. One of the men bellowed out an apelike long call to announce their presence. Soon a single female with an infant gripping its fur lowered from the canopy above. She snatched some fruit and quickly disappeared back into the jungle. 

The Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre near Sandakan, Malaysia, serves as a temporary home for the apes. Infants rescued from habitats destroyed by logging and orphans whose mothers have been killed by poachers are treated and cared for, their beseeching hands reaching out to anyone who enters the nursery. “It’s difficult when the orangutans come in very young,” Reynard Gondipon, the center’s veterinarian, told me as he showed me through the facility. “I urge the rangers to hug them every now and then.” As they grow, the orangutans are moved out onto the grounds of the 9,000-acre center. There these naturally solitary creatures live alongside others as they learn the lore of forest life: how to climb, build nests, search for food, survive. Slowly, like the mother and child who disappeared into the canopy, they embrace the wilds. Once it is determined that they can fend for themselves, Sepilok’s staff transport them into the forest far away from humanity. 

I have long been fascinated by our closest living relatives and our linked ancient ancestry. In the early 1980s I was thrilled to hear presentations by all three of the primatologists known as the Trimates—Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas—when they were in New York to discuss their studies of chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. I recall Fossey mentioning a visit to the American Museum of Natural History’s Akeley Hall of African Mammals. While there, she stopped in front of the mountain gorilla diorama. The creatures behind the plate glass had been shot in 1921 by naturalist Carl Akeley during an expedition he led for the museum. Akeley soon after convinced the Belgian government—which controlled the land where those gorillas once lived—to create a national park to protect the apes. Fossey spoke of how she mourned the taxidermic creatures forever frozen in the case yet appreciated Akeley’s and the museum’s efforts to study and save those still in the wild. Of course, Fossey would die only a few years later as she herself fought to protect gorillas in the remote rainforests of Rwanda’s Virunga mountains. 

The work Fossey, Galdikas, and Goodall dedicated their lives to is not for the faint of heart. Galdikas recently described to me the hardships she endured studying Borneo’s orangutans: “You are sitting in the swamp. It is so primeval. You couldn’t stand the buzzing of the mosquitos, the buzzing of the other insects, the horseflies that bite you. They really hurt, just a sharp hurt. And of course, the leeches.” But she also experienced true joy observing the magnificent animals, recalling how on Christmas Day 1971 at the start of her time doing her research she watched a mother and its child emerge from its tree nest. Galdikas called the sight “the best Christmas present.” 

Humans and the great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans) and smaller apes (gibbons) share a common past. Our species diverged millions of years ago and evolved. Earth’s human population was about 1 million in 10,000 BCE, and 3 billion when Goodall arrived in Tanzania in 1960. There are now 8 billion people on earth. While the human population has exploded, that is not the case for apes. In 1900 there were more than 1 million chimpanzees in the wild. At most, a third of that number now exist. Orangutans have dropped from 300,000 to roughly 100,000. 

Many more will perish, as the human population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2100. Apes’ numbers have been decimated, as they lose their habitats to deforestation and their lives to poachers. While there are laws to protect these species, trafficking is highly profitable. Each year, thousands of young apes are captured, with baby gorillas being offered for more than half a million dollars on social media sites like WhatsApp. 

There are, though, hopeful signs for some ape populations as they and their habitats are being protected. The mountain gorillas in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest have seen their numbers increase from 254 in 1981 to more than 1,000 today, due to intense conservation practices and ecotourism. 

To preserve their habitats, governments and organizations have trained locals to manage the forests. This creates jobs and encourages communities to protect what they have. The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund has trackers who monitor daily the largest of the apes where Fossey set up camp back in 1967. “These guys are the front line of conservation,” says Tara Stoinski, president of the fund. “They are the reason that these animals are still on the planet. These mountains are cold, they’re wet, and they are tracking up to 13,000 feet 365 days a year. They are true conservation heroes.”

Galdikas’ Camp Leakey and her Orangutan Care Center and Quarantine facility in the Indonesian village of Pasir Panjang 700 miles southwest of Sandakan similarly cares for and rewilds apes. And the new 117,000 acre Ekolo ya Bonobo, created by Claudine André in rainforests in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has become home to freed bonobos. There are fewer than 2,500 Javan silvery gibbons left in the wild, and the Aspinall Foundation in conjunction with the Indonesian government has successfully reintroduced two dozen into protected areas. 

Such work is an uphill and often dangerous battle. Legions of researchers, scientists, and volunteers have devoted their lives to watching over, studying, and protecting our magnificent relatives. As the great primatologist George Schaller wrote of the gorillas in National Geographic in 1995, which holds true for all the great and smaller apes, “We have a common past, but only humans have been given the mental power to worry about their fate.”

Enjoy this selection of photos from LIFE’s new special issue Apes: Their Remarkable World.

Nick Ledger/Alamy; (background) Gudkov Andrey/Shutterstock

A chimpanzee mother and her baby at the Conkouati-Douli National Park in the Republic of Congo.

Gudkov Andrey/Shutterstock

As it is with human children, chimpanzees like to have fun. Playtime is an important developmental activity and can lead to breathy laughter. Three-year-old Gizmo and his 8-year-old brother Gimli enjoyed a bit of roughhousing at Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park.

Anup Shah/Stone/Getty

The bonobo is often mistaken for a chimpanzee, but it smaller and slimmer.

Gudkov Andrey/Shutterstock

Gorillas are the largest living primates.

P. Wegner/imageBROKER/Shutterstock

Orangutans like these have the most intense mother-child relationship of any primate besides humans.

Freder/E+/Getty

The Siamang Gibbon makes sounds that can be heard two miles away.

Steve Clancy Photography/Moment/Getty

A lar gibbon and its child swing through the forest canopy.

Kittipong Chotitana/Shutterstock

The post Apes: Their Remarkable World appeared first on LIFE.