Orangutan Photog Garners Legions of Facebook Fans

OK, so maybe she's no Annie Leibovitz. But still, Nonja the orangutan does have a knack with a camera —not to mention nearly 50,000 fans to her credit.

The furry photographer has gotten snap-happy inside Austria's Schönbrunn Zoo, where she has been armed with a camera that dispenses a raisin each time she clicks the shutter. And zoo officials have found the perfect place to display her art: Facebook.

Nonja's slightly askew photos (she's oh-so avant garde), debuted on the social networking site Dec. 1, and she's been attracting legions of supporters ever since.

"Of course the apes don't care about the pictures, they are just an accidental side product. They just know that when they press the button, a raisin pops out," zoo spokesman Gerhard Kasbauer told Reuters in slightly killjoy manner. Personally, we'd like to think Nonja is dedicated to her art.

The pics mostly show her fellow apes in action: one shows a close-up of a face, another of a fist and yet another of fur. Her latest pics have attracted hundreds of comments in multiple languages.

Nonja, 33, has lived at the zoo her whole life, but is one tech-savvy lady. According to Popular Science she uses a custom-designed ST-1000 point-and-shoot camera that not only doles out treats, but has built-in wi-fi and Bluetooth to automatically transmit photos once they're taken ... so salivating Facebook fans don't have to wait long for her next gem.

So maybe Nonja is just in it for the raisins, but with so many Facebook fans, we suspect she likes the acclaim, too.

Wanna see Nonja's photos for yourself? Click here. (Sorry, no raisins for clicking.)

Photo courtesy of Zyance via Wikimedia Commons.