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LITTLE ROCK—It’s a good thing the great apes at the Little Rock Zoo don’t know about eBay.

The chimpanzees and orangutans have earned a reputation as hard bargainers if someone drops an item into their enclosures and wants it returned.

Ape keeper Daphne Pfeiffer told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette of one instance in which Rok, the zoo’s dominant orangutan, found a mobile phone and the owners wanted it back. Rok was willing to deal, but only at his price. And he’s smart enough to return a phone one piece at a time.

“He took the rubber faceplate off first,” Pfeiffer said. “I got a frozen candy bar out of the freezer, but I couldn’t break it to trade a piece for the faceplate. So I tried to reason with him. I told him if he gave me the whole phone, I’d give him the whole candy bar.”

Too much talk, not enough candy.

“He got mad. He looked right at me, put it in his mouth and crunched it,” Pfeiffer said. “And that’s exactly what it sounded like—crunch!”

Keepers said there are plenty of reasons for patrons to not drop or throw things into animal enclosures. One danger zoo-goers may not think about is disease. The apes are susceptible to many of the same maladies humans catch.

Another ape keeper, Ann Rademacher, said the apes will fight over found items, knowing they can be traded for treats.

Pfeiffer said it cost her some grapes when she lost her keys in the chimpanzee enclosure. “One of the little boy chimps had them,” she said. “Dad saw him and took the keys from him. He knew I had grapes. He knew the keys had value.”