It Takes Two to Tango, Even for Chimpanzees

On the morning of Super Bowl Sunday, we had an immaculate conception.

A chimpanzee at the Los Angeles Zoo gave birth, with no visible means of becoming pregnant.

Her name is Yoshi, and her baby’s name is Toshi.

(Another brave single mom.)

Zookeepers are baffled. It is either a miracle, a mystery or Yoshi’s been sneaking out at night, having an illicit romance.

For which she eventually will have to answer to Henry Hyde.

Until then, I have volunteered my assistance to the L.A. Zoo to help locate Toshi’s natural father. The last thing this town needs is another deadbeat dad.

I even made them round up the suspects, so I could look them in the eye. A bunch of animals, the lot of them.

They sat there, playing innocent.

“Look at you,” I said. “You all think you’re so cute.”

*

Here’s the story, more of which you can read in my forthcoming book, “Primate Colors”:

About 7:30 Sunday morning--while the rest of the world was sleeping or in church praying for the Atlanta Falcons to cover the point spread--a zoo employee arrived for work.

His position there is “assistant chimp keeper.”

I must admit, this job title is new to me. I have never heard of chimp keeping, although it must be similar to welcoming guests to Jerry Springer’s TV show.

Giraffe keeping, I did know. A 7-foot basketball player I once knew got so sick of being asked by strangers what he did for a living, his stock answer became: “I wash giraffe ears.”

Anyway, when the assistant chimp keeper got to work Sunday, he saw something at the popular Chimpanzees of Mahale Mountain exhibit that made him quickly call up the chief chimp keeper.

(Or, as I now think of her, the chimp in chief.)

The assistant saw a small pool of blood, which made him fret that a chimp had been hurt. But then he spotted Yoshiko, 8, “Yoshi” to her friends, who was grooming a newborn girl chimp.

Now, unless Yoshi applied to an adoption agency that delivers at night, she had this baby herself.

But her keepers were stumped as to how.

They couldn’t have been more surprised had Yoshi and Toshi broken into a chorus of “Hey hey, we’re the Monkees.”

It was inconceivable to them, in part because Yoshi had never shown a single sign of pregnancy. She didn’t ask for pickles and ice cream, or have morning sickness, or plod around the zoo in a muumuu.

The chimp in chief did notice of Yoshi one day, “Hmmm, she’s looking kind of heavy.”

At that point, I guess it came down to a choice of giving Yoshi a home pregnancy test or one of those chimpanzee Thighmasters.

But the keepers weren’t worried, because of the six male chimps on the premises, not a one was an apparent candidate to be a parent.

Three chimps had a vasectomy.

(I’m sure they thought it over carefully, reading all the literature, before making a sensible choice.)

Two chimps were too young.

Glenn, 4, had been a surprise birth himself, his mother having been fed a variety of banana dinners stuffed with birth control pills. Ripley, 2, also was a surprise, his mother having had a birth control implant.

A male chimpanzee is usually 5 before he matures, as opposed to male humans, who don’t mature until, oh, ever.

That left Toto, 44.

Unfortunately, Toto’s the kind of ape whose standard expression is pretty much, “Who, me?” He isn’t interested in sex. He never goes near a female chimp in that way. I wish we could elect him.

“It would be a wonderful surprise if Toto is the father,” the museum’s curator, Michael Dee, was quoted later, “because he has never produced an offspring and has not shown interest.”

Which, by the way, more or less makes Toto like a brother to me.

*

I have several theories on what could have happened, if the Zoogate investigation continues.

One is that somebody’s vasectomy turned out to be about as dependable as a Ford Pinto. Another is that a zoologist has invented a little blue miracle pill for chimps. A third is that Toto somehow got inspired, possibly by having found a copy of Playchimp magazine.

Or, it really is a miracle, like Moses parting the Red Sea, or like Atlanta winning the NFC.

L.A.’s zoo can’t afford many mistakes. Money’s tight.

A generous woman did donate $25,000 to “adopt” and name Toshi, but how far will this money go? It’ll barely keep her in pill-filled bananas.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com