“I was sitting drinking tea with Dr Birute Galdikas (from Orangutan Foundation International) on the steps of her bungalow deep in the backwaters of southern Indonesia when one of her other guests, a young orangutan mother, suddenly took me by the hand and began to walk me to the edge of the jungle.

She took Birute’s hand as well, and the three of us set off under the canopy of the great rainforest to look for her naughty son who had scaled a tree and refused to come down.

Mrs Orangutan gave him a piece of her mind at high volume and he eventually slithered down looking like a sullen teenager.

“She trusts you,” said Dr Galdikas. And that was it: I had lost my heart.”

My Big 5

(and already I feel a traitor to those I love and have left out):
Orangutan
Desert Fox
Pangolin
Panther
Giraffe