Humans Aren't The Only Ones Striving to Stay Young

There are some celebrities that would do just about anything to stay young, but for Sumatran orangutans, the fountain of youth is a little easier to come by — at least for the males. That's because they're able to put off puberty to keep their good looks.

For our great ape cousins, puberty means it's time to get together with a mate and start making babies. While that's fine for some orangutan boys, others just aren't ready to give up their bachelorhood that easily. Fortunately, they can choose to delay puberty and postpone the development of cheek flanges and other characteristics of potential baby-daddies. They can even postpone their puberty for ten whole years, honing their skills and improving their strength to help them become one of the dominant males when they actually are ready to grow up.

Scientists still don't know how these orangutans can arrest their development or why the Bornean orangutans lack this ability, but I'm sure there would be plenty of people in Hollywood who would be willing to pay big money to help speed along their research.

[Image courtesy of Flickr user Itshears.]