Orangutan puffing cigarette

Bandung (Indonesia) : Indonesia can now add a smoking orangutan to its roster of nicotine addicts.

A video taken on Sunday shows the beast picking up a cigarette butt that was flicked into its zoo enclosure by a visitor and then puffing away on it like a pro.

The images of 22-year-old Bornean orangutan Ozon at the zoo in Bandung, about 150 kilometres (93 miles) southeast of Jakarta, promptly went viral.

This not the first that a zoo orangutan has been caught sneaking a smoke in Indonesia, which has an abysmal record of animal protection and one of the world’s highest smoking rates.

In 2012 a great ape at another zoo became a nicotine addict after picking up butts, and had to be forced to quit cold turkey.