--- title: Iris the Chimpanzee Finds Love at Florida Sanctuary description: "She kissed him and he groomed her" canonical: https://time.com/3761353/iris-chimpanzee-finds-love/ author: NBC News article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-27T13:20:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:03:05.873Z og:title: Iris the Chimpanzee Finds Love at Florida Sanctuary og:description: "She kissed him and he groomed her" og:url: https://time.com/3761353/iris-chimpanzee-finds-love/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd659cd6cc201d05f/6987858ecd6848773909a59d/150326-iris-chimp-meets-abdul-1251p_8255b6618c65b89563baa9e100095643.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2500 og:image:height: 1406 og:image:alt: Iris, who did not have any chimp friends at a Georgia zoo, meets her new pal Abdul at the Florida sanctuary she now calls home. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Iris the Chimpanzee Finds Love at Florida Sanctuary twitter:description: "She kissed him and he groomed her" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd659cd6cc201d05f/6987858ecd6848773909a59d/150326-iris-chimp-meets-abdul-1251p_8255b6618c65b89563baa9e100095643.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Iris the Chimpanzee Finds Love at Florida Sanctuary ## Video: Inside the Canine Mind [Watch (HLS stream): Inside the Canine Mind](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/dTemQHb7.m3u8) (2:08)  _Published 2009-09-11. Professor Brian Hare at Duke University studies people's pet dogs to understand how canines think_ by [NBC News](https://time.com/author/nbc-news/) ## NBC News Mar 27, 2015 1:20 PM UTC  Iris, who did not have any chimp friends at a Georgia zoo, meets her new pal Abdul at the Florida sanctuary she now calls home. Iris, who did not have any chimp friends at a Georgia zoo, meets her new pal Abdul at the Florida sanctuary she now calls home.Save the Chimps/NBC by [NBC News](https://time.com/author/nbc-news/) ## NBC News Mar 27, 2015 1:20 PM UTC At the lush Florida sanctuary that she now calls home, Iris is known as “a chimp’s chimp” who has little enthusiasm for human caretakers but a lot of interest in one particular male primate. “We introduced her to a male chimpanzee, 40 years old, and they immediately fell in love,” said Jen Feuerstein, sanctuary director at Save the Chimps in Fort Pierce. “She kissed him and he groomed her.” The organization took in Iris three weeks ago after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals negotiated to have her transferred from a zoo in Georgia where they allege she was kept… [_Read the rest of the story from our partners at NBC News._](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/georgia-zoo-chimpanzee-finds-love-florida-sanctuary-n329936?cid=par-time-article%5F20150327) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3761353/iris-chimpanzee-finds-love/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3761353/iris-chimpanzee-finds-love/"},"headline":"Iris the Chimpanzee Finds Love at Florida Sanctuary","datePublished":"2015-03-27T13:20:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:03:05.873Z","description":"\"She kissed him and he groomed her\"","url":"https://time.com/3761353/iris-chimpanzee-finds-love/","keywords":["Newsfeed","animals"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd659cd6cc201d05f/6987858ecd6848773909a59d/150326-iris-chimp-meets-abdul-1251p_8255b6618c65b89563baa9e100095643.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"NBC News","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nbc-news/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd659cd6cc201d05f/6987858ecd6848773909a59d/150326-iris-chimp-meets-abdul-1251p_8255b6618c65b89563baa9e100095643.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Iris, who did not have any chimp friends at a Georgia zoo, meets her new pal Abdul at the Florida sanctuary she now calls home.","caption":"Iris, who did not have any chimp friends at a Georgia zoo, meets her new pal Abdul at the Florida sanctuary she now calls home.","creditText":"Save the Chimps/NBC","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3761353/iris-chimpanzee-finds-love/","name":"Iris the Chimpanzee Finds Love at Florida Sanctuary"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Inside the Canine Mind","description":"Professor Brian Hare at Duke University studies people's pet dogs to understand how canines think","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/dTemQHb7/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2009-09-11T01:23:04.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/dTemQHb7.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3761353/iris-chimpanzee-finds-love/","duration":"PT2M8S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3761353/iris-chimpanzee-finds-love/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```