Science
Related: About this forumIs there an ape for that? Orangutans plan trips
BY SETH BORENSTEIN
WASHINGTON (AP) Its the ape equivalent of Google Maps and Facebook. The night before a big trip, Arno the orangutan plots his journey and lets others know where he is going with a long, whooping call.
What he and his orangutan buddies do in the forests of Sumatra tells scientists that advance trip planning and social networking arent just human traits,
A new study of 15 wild male orangutans finds that they routinely plot out their next day treks and share their plans in long calls, so females can come by or track them, and competitive males can steer clear.
The researchers closely followed the males as they traveled on 320 days during the 1990s. The results were published Wednesday in the journal PLoS One.
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http://www.salon.com/2013/09/11/is_there_an_ape_for_that_orangutans_plan_trips/singleton/
DreamGypsy
(2,252 posts)Our speaking, planning, thinking traits had their origins in some common ancestor with our cousins. Won't be too many years (maybe a few thousand...or a few hundred thousand)...before the men of the forest catch up and are checking out the bargains on orangxpedia and posting their itineraries on orangfacebook.
This assumes, of course, that homo sapiens does not render the planet uninhabitable ... which is the apparent course we are following.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)Warpy
(111,352 posts)Those critters are astonishingly smart. They're the critters zoos use to test how secure cages are because if there is a way to get out, an orangutan will find it in record time.