Curious how many of you started with one species and ended up obsessed with all of them
I went down this rabbit hole because of gibbons, honestly. Watched a documentary about siamangs about four years ago and something about their vocal sacs and the way they brachiate just stuck with me. I started reading everything I could find, joined a couple forums, started planning zoo trips around which ones had a decent gibbon or siamang enclosure.
Fast forward to now and I've got a genuine soft spot for basically every primate family. Tarsiers freak me out a little but I still watch every video about them. Mandrills are probably my favorite to see in person because the color on the mature males is genuinely shocking the first time you see it up close, photos really don't do it justice. Even the less "charismatic" ones like aye-ayes or slow lorises have started to grow on me once I actually read about their behavior instead of just looking at pictures.
What's interesting is talking to other people in this hobby (if you can call it that) and hearing how differently everyone got into it. Some people started with chimps because of Jane Goodall stuff in school. Some people got obsessed after visiting a specific sanctuary. I've met a few who started because of pet primate documentaries and then went the completely opposite direction and became advocates against private ownership after learning more.
Curious what pulled everyone else in here. Was it a specific species, a trip somewhere, a book, a random YouTube rabbit hole at 2am. Always interested to hear the origin story because it's rarely the same twice.