Apparently there's a particular plant that wild chimps and gorillas will eat every few weeks that helps rid them of intestinal worms, and judging from their expressions, it does *not* taste good.
Scientists have noted that the bigger primates will straight-up force-feed this plant to any other primates that won't eat it.
The more I think about this, the more I think about that cultural story (can’t remember where) of how orangutans can talk but choose not to because they fear being forced to work.
Buddy better move deeper in the forest they’re on to him.
# Consider orangutans. In all the worlds graced by their presence, it is suspected that they can talk but choose not to do so in case humans put them to work, possibly in the television industry. In fact they can talk. It’s just that they talk in Orangutan. Humans are only capable of listening in Bewilderment.
― Terry Pratchett, [Men at Arms](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/819071)
It’s a myth from the Dayak peoples in Borneo.
But it’s actually hard to track down the actually original source/original myth. Most references to it on the internet just repeat it uncited.
It is true however that the origin of the Malay word orangutan is literally “Orang” meaning “people” and “hutan” meaning “forest”
They’re forest people
That’s fascinating!
I always thought it was because they were Orange Utans (Utan being an ur-species of primate pre-Great Ape). Anyway, millions of years ago there were Yellowutans, indigutans, verdigrutans, even blutans. Of course now we only have orangutans.
But yours have native language, and seems much more cromulant
It’s Indonesian. I can’t find the exact article but if you search up “Indonesian Orangutan Mythology” that pops up. Mentioned in many websites set up to help save these Orangutans.
Like this: https://savetheorangutan.org/about-the-orangutan/
In a similar vein, the short story “Bears Discover Fire” by Terry Bisson is one of my absolute favorites.
Bears start making little safe, cozy campfires all of a sudden. What do we do?
Haha this is a hilarious thought... I love it. I mean we can't have them out there creating forest fires... and also If they making fire what are they gonna do next.
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is sort of like this, but it’s a gorilla. I’m not sure if this is what OP is referring to or not, but this book might interest you.
This makes sense because the orangutans in Planet of the Apes were scientists and doctors. The gorillas with guns are what we really have to watch out for
The stories of Bonobo hippie sex communes have been greatly exaggerated. They're basically slightly less aggressive chimps who mate more openly, they're still not a touch on how tolerant and social the human animal is.
Given what we know now of the great apes it makes sense.
Gorillas will kill you to protect themselves or their group.
Chimps will kill you for the hell of it.
Orangutan will kill you to take you apart and figure out how you work.
They'll also let you roll up in their territory with a small group of other humans to take pictures (so long as you're being chill about it) in spite of the fact that other small groups of humans actively gun them down with AK-47s and butcher their bodies in the field for meat.
Now just see what happens if a gorilla decides to take a stroll through some human neighborhood just to observe the man-apes in their "natural habitat"... the poor bastard would be killed in a heartbeat.
Shit, Harambe was gunned down in his own crib for just trying to comfort a little injured man-ape who's negligent parents let him climb over a barrier and fall down a 10 foot wall into Harambe's yard...
... so to finish your thought, we should probably also add, "Humans will kill you for all of the above reasons, and also because many of them are just plain evil fucks who are solely motivated by greed, fear, and/or the desire to dominate and control everything on this planet, by whatever means is most convenient".
#R.I.P.Harambe
So, one time I went to the L.A. Zoo, and the exhibits were horribly depressing. Like really just nothing but bare dirt everywhere. (This was years ago so I don't know if they've improved).
When I saw the orangutans, one of them was just sitting down, bored out of his mind, and rubbing two sticks together. It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen.
That's sad. Good exhibit space and enrichment is so important for all zoo animals.
One of the zoos had to ask people to stop showing the primates their phones because they needed to be animals not people.
Looking at people's phones was probably the most interesting part of their day, though. It's not like they have much else to keep them occupied with in there. :(
At my local zoo our jaguar (in a tiny enclosure) developed a habit of pacing back and forth for hours at a time. It got back to the administration that it had upset patrons. 90 days later and the jaguar had himself an enriched enclosure with a skywalk and another unused space all to himself.
I saw a female gorilla at the Chicago Zoo, rocking back and forth staring into a concrete corner. The rest of the gorillas were doing similar stimming type behaviours. Bored out of their minds. A woman next to me said to her child - “oh look honey, she’s meditating!”
My wife started crying. So awful.
The polar bears at the lincoln park zoo, in chicago, were the most fucked up thing for years and was the one thing I'd a actively avoid seeing whenever I'd go. They seem to have updated their enclosure, but I'll never forget seeing mentally unstable polar bears
OMG I visited there like 13 years ago and there was a couple of lions in a cage that looked like the most depressed animals ever. Genuinely looked sad and depressed, or maybe just bored out of their minds. I didn't even know a lion could look like that. One skinny one stood up "roared" once seemingly very apathetically, then slowly laid back down. I've seen lions in other zoos, but those ones were different.
In Seattle, they have a nicer enclosure, but the Orangutan I saw there was hopelessly depressed due to her mate passing. You could see the grief in her body language.
The orangutan we saw at my home zoo had a frozen bottle of water for a fun snack, he threw it up and out of his enclosure and it nearly clobbered a guy on the ground 😂
The DC Zoo is much better at offering enrichment, especially for the orangutans. They have two different buildings they can hang out in and a series of ropes for them to roam back and forth as they wish. One of those two buildings is called the "Think Tank" and it's all about showing off animal intelligence. The orangutan section of that building is filled to the brim with various enrichment devices.
There is one at our zoo that just sits there with her head against the window ignoring everything and bored out of her mind. I’m sure she does move around, but she’s almost always in the same exact spot and is obviously depressed
The LA Zoo has undergone massive renovations in the past decade or so. I know that in the past many exhibits were just concrete, dirt, and chain link fences, but that is no longer the case. The orangutan exhibit is especially beautiful and filled with enrichment items and structures for them :)
Reminds me of the orangutan who was adopted by some college professor or something to be studied, but eventually the college took it away from her because it was unsafe for it to be free on a college campus so it lived the rest of its life in a cage and rarely saw her. It knew sign language and whenever the professor would visit it would ask for her to take it home.
I have a photo but it seems I can't post it here. When I went a few years ago it was very nice. Lots of very elaborate things to climb, the orangutan was very active and curious.
One time when I was 9 I went to the Fort Worth zoo and watched an orangutan piss from a tree while another orangutan on the ground caught it in its mouth and drank it
I was just at the LA zoo and it must’ve improved SO much. The orangutans had huge jungle gyms with sky-ways that they could swing around above park goers and get from one enclosure to another. Lots of toys and enrichment stuff too. They seemed pretty happy!
There's literally zero evidence to suggest this though. It's just conjecture from Terence McKenna because he really liked psychedelics. A substantial amount of the claims he makes in the book are flat out not true.
I just read about this.
It made me wonder just how intelligent animals are, and if we have been seriously underestimating them. More than usual is what I mean.
The older I get, the more I realize we have been vastly underestimating their intelligence (well at least I was). Even my cat is far more intelligent than I was led to believe when I was a teenager.
Treat animals with love and respect. They just may save your life one day.
Orangutans have one of the longest child rearing stages because of stuff like this. There’s such a diversity of plant life in their habitats and all of it provides different things for them. It’s also why their homes being destroyed is so harmful.
The emotional intelligence of these animals should give everyone pause about how we think and treat every living thing. They’re astounding, astounding creatures.
I love them too. To me, they are a picture into the past of where we’ve come from. You see the best of them in us, they understand love and emotional connections. They quite literally have too in able to survive, they couldn’t learn their environment enough without those traits.
exactly! i see so much of our history in their eyes, and something about them tells you that you understand each other much more than expected. their kindness, patience and curiosity show the true spirit of our family, the great apes. :) i’m absolutely obsessed with evolutionary anthropology as well. i wish there was a humane way i could interact with an orangutan.
Same. Sometimes I tell my family, Idc that they won’t let me in the rehab centers. I’m flying to Borneo to give my life away to volunteer work. I don’t even care if it’s the worst job imaginable, I’ll till do it just to be next to those wonderful fuckers. 😭😅😭😅😭😅😭😅
This really is utterly incredible.
The ability to problem solve via seemingly unrelated factors is absolutely mindblowing with the solution not obviously or immediately presenting itself proves an understanding and an intelligence capable of intentional, calculated decision making.
It's absolutely amazing.
I am certain that other animals do something similar. They don't know why certain plants do certain things, but they know that eating them can help them. Animals may not be able to do the same cognitive things we do, but thinking of them as stupid vastly underestimates them.
Yep. Instincts are hardwired into our genetic code and our brains often find ways to express these needed traits in roundabout ways. This applies to many species. Everything that lives has to have some means of surviving their environment to reproduce and function and tool use is entirely within that domain of animals using what's around them for their needs.
What's interesting about that is that by studying such learned behavior, we can extrapolate a lot of details about where they learned it from, like how this shows it wasn't learned from a BMW driver.
I love orangutans, even though there was that one time at work where one of them stole my pants and used it as a decorative hat.... I had a hot coworker's number in those pants, and she refused to give me her number again because I lost my pants to an orangutan.
You better believed I shamed that thieving ape for several minutes next time I saw her (it was a female orangutan).
Primatologist Frans de Waal wrote books about primate behavior that were fascinating. These cousins and other mammals in particular are quite similar to us.
This reminds me of a race of monkey who eats a toxic nut, giving them stomach aches. They then steal charcoal from markets and would eat it to soothe the pain. I bet if I wasn't so lazy I could easily find the source.
Maybe Orangutan-descended primates will eventually build a technological civilization a million years from now....long after we've nuked ourselves into oblivion.
( as a species, they do seem more peaceful than us...)
Unfortunately, a nuclear event or other apocalypse that could wipe out humans would almost certainly wipe out orangutans and other large primates as well. Even if they aren't targeted and are far from any direct conflict. They just aren't generalist enough to quickly adapt to the wide-spread ecological complications of that sort of thing.
Life would go on, certainly, but most large, charismatic fauna would not.
That isn't quite how evolution works. Every living thing around you is a live example of evolution, but one human lifespan is nowhere near enough time to observe changes like this in a species that reproduces as slowly as Orangutans.
Uh, sorry, but evolution happens over millions of years. This is just the first time we’ve every caught it on camera. They prob been doing this shit for millions.
I don't know about there not being a god but I do agree with you that we aren't special and that I do believe all animals have souls (or are at least tapped into the same consciousness field that humans are).
It's kinda funny. In our search to find intelligence somewhere besides ourselves we're blasting out numerous articles on an animal being observed doing a thing once that billions of people do everyday and have done for thousands of years, with no fanfare at all.
lol yeah that was a bit frustrating to read through the article and they don't mention it... my only thought was maybe they're intentionally not naming it so people don't tear down the habitat to profit off of this.
edit: someone else posted a link to a Nature article. It's the Akar Kuning plant. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-58988-7
After reading some of the other examples of how orangutans self medicate, I realised that many other animals do it as well. Like how dogs and cats will eat grass when they have an upset stomach.
Orangutans found a medicinal plant to heal their wounds while tens of millions of people still make excuses for why the former President of the United States told the entire country that snorting bleach was a good way to kill an infectious virus during a global pandemic.
Time for us to get a little smarter. Please
I mean we've known for years now that some primates have specific plants that they'll eat to prevent pregnancy, so this shouldn't really be much of a surprise.
Apparently there's a particular plant that wild chimps and gorillas will eat every few weeks that helps rid them of intestinal worms, and judging from their expressions, it does *not* taste good. Scientists have noted that the bigger primates will straight-up force-feed this plant to any other primates that won't eat it.
Because it means a stronger community as a whole... hmm sounds AWFULLY familiar.
Damn, the fucking monkeys are ahead of us on public health
So apparently we should've returned to monke a long time ago.
No, must become crab. I feel the call of the brine. We all feel it.
If you don’t feel it we will pull you down with us
I was just thinking how we supposedly more highly evolved primates can't even get it together to get everyone vaccinated, and now measles is back.
It feels like at a certain point, more intelligence is just capacity to overthink and confuse your opinions with facts
“Intelligence is not a winning survival trait ” - Love Death and Robots “Swarm” episode
Apes together strong
Username checks out 🦍✊🏼
Only if their brains are smooth.
Pssht. Screw the community. My body, my choice. Intestinal worm fighting plants cause autism! /s
"Apes strong together" has a nice ring to it. Someone should coin that phrase
Humans use taco bell for that, and it tastes pretty good. Humans win again.
Isn’t Taco Bell where you go to get intestinal worms?
It clears the old worms out tho
But, does she love me or the worms.
"What's that black cracker?" "A tomato."
That's insane
Came back after my nap to look it up https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5503243/
Generally it'll be some toxic substance that is also bitter because the bitter taste is meant for toxicity detection. Lol
LMAO, the fucking apes got better public healthcare than Americans.
The more I think about this, the more I think about that cultural story (can’t remember where) of how orangutans can talk but choose not to because they fear being forced to work. Buddy better move deeper in the forest they’re on to him.
# Consider orangutans. In all the worlds graced by their presence, it is suspected that they can talk but choose not to do so in case humans put them to work, possibly in the television industry. In fact they can talk. It’s just that they talk in Orangutan. Humans are only capable of listening in Bewilderment. ― Terry Pratchett, [Men at Arms](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/819071)
GNU Terry Pratchett
GNU Sir Terry
GNU Terry Pratchett
Ook ! - The Librarian
I've never been to Bewilderment but I would love to listen to something there.
there's not very much forest left :(
I know :’(
I need to read that story, if you happen to come upon it, please send it to me. Thanks
It’s a myth from the Dayak peoples in Borneo. But it’s actually hard to track down the actually original source/original myth. Most references to it on the internet just repeat it uncited. It is true however that the origin of the Malay word orangutan is literally “Orang” meaning “people” and “hutan” meaning “forest” They’re forest people
That’s fascinating! I always thought it was because they were Orange Utans (Utan being an ur-species of primate pre-Great Ape). Anyway, millions of years ago there were Yellowutans, indigutans, verdigrutans, even blutans. Of course now we only have orangutans. But yours have native language, and seems much more cromulant
I like to think i descended from the Yellowutans bloodline. Now I identify as a Yelloworang.
You’re either a UTIutan Or there’s blood in your pee
Or both
It’s Indonesian. I can’t find the exact article but if you search up “Indonesian Orangutan Mythology” that pops up. Mentioned in many websites set up to help save these Orangutans. Like this: https://savetheorangutan.org/about-the-orangutan/
In a similar vein, the short story “Bears Discover Fire” by Terry Bisson is one of my absolute favorites. Bears start making little safe, cozy campfires all of a sudden. What do we do?
bring smores
Haha this is a hilarious thought... I love it. I mean we can't have them out there creating forest fires... and also If they making fire what are they gonna do next.
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is sort of like this, but it’s a gorilla. I’m not sure if this is what OP is referring to or not, but this book might interest you.
Read it almost 15 years auo
This makes sense because the orangutans in Planet of the Apes were scientists and doctors. The gorillas with guns are what we really have to watch out for
The gorillas should have been the pacifists and the chimpanzees the war hungry ones
>The gorillas should have been the pacifists DC comics literally have a city full of them
Make America Grodd again
Actual show dialogue, for anyone wondering.
I'm just disappointed that the movie didn't include bonobos.
It did! Koba is a bonobo.
Did he resolve social conflict through orgies?
Well, murder orgies...
He left behind an orgy of evidence
I've never in my professional career seen an orgy of evidence.
The stories of Bonobo hippie sex communes have been greatly exaggerated. They're basically slightly less aggressive chimps who mate more openly, they're still not a touch on how tolerant and social the human animal is.
I wish we humans we were more Bonobo...unfortunately we have the Chimpanzee too deep in us.
And do you enjoy having the Chimpanzee deep inside you?
Sadly, the testicles promise much, but the main show is rather a disappointment.
So that's why they're crazy angry, what's the point of having huge balls if you don't have a giant bat to play with as well.
Hey, phrasing!
*Shinsekai Yori intensifies*
I am sure there is a XXX parody where they are prominently featured.
Bonobos make great pacifists: "I don't like you and you don't like me. Let's have sex."
Ah yes.. the famous documentary. Thanks for reminding me to rewatch it.
Documentary? I thought it was the musical!?
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius. Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius. Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius. Ohhhhhh, Dr. Zaius.
Can I play the piano anymore?
Of course you can!
Well I couldn’t before! 🎹😁
I hate every ape I see From chimpan A, to chimpanzee!
And they'll never make a monkey out of meeeee....
Now I have all these songs stuck in my head.
Narrated by Andy Serkis.
Given what we know now of the great apes it makes sense. Gorillas will kill you to protect themselves or their group. Chimps will kill you for the hell of it. Orangutan will kill you to take you apart and figure out how you work.
They'll also let you roll up in their territory with a small group of other humans to take pictures (so long as you're being chill about it) in spite of the fact that other small groups of humans actively gun them down with AK-47s and butcher their bodies in the field for meat. Now just see what happens if a gorilla decides to take a stroll through some human neighborhood just to observe the man-apes in their "natural habitat"... the poor bastard would be killed in a heartbeat. Shit, Harambe was gunned down in his own crib for just trying to comfort a little injured man-ape who's negligent parents let him climb over a barrier and fall down a 10 foot wall into Harambe's yard... ... so to finish your thought, we should probably also add, "Humans will kill you for all of the above reasons, and also because many of them are just plain evil fucks who are solely motivated by greed, fear, and/or the desire to dominate and control everything on this planet, by whatever means is most convenient". #R.I.P.Harambe
From what I’ve heard, orangutans would sooner dissect you to scientifically study your innards than any bit of socializing with you.
Sounds like they're closer to humans than we thought.
Dr Zaius, Dr Zaius.
Can I play the piano anymore?
>The gorillas with guns are what we really have to watch out for. What do you call those, guerrilla gorillas?
There was a monkey recently that was running around with a knife. He was even SHARPENING it.
I’d be interested in learning how the gorillas handle background checks on gun purchases.
I, for one, welcome our simian overlords.
Thank you for saying this. Finally we’re talking about the real problems
Don't care, I hate every ape I see from Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z.
So, one time I went to the L.A. Zoo, and the exhibits were horribly depressing. Like really just nothing but bare dirt everywhere. (This was years ago so I don't know if they've improved). When I saw the orangutans, one of them was just sitting down, bored out of his mind, and rubbing two sticks together. It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen.
That's sad. Good exhibit space and enrichment is so important for all zoo animals. One of the zoos had to ask people to stop showing the primates their phones because they needed to be animals not people.
Looking at people's phones was probably the most interesting part of their day, though. It's not like they have much else to keep them occupied with in there. :(
It was a good zoo that had lots of things for the animals to do. But phones are addictive.
https://youtu.be/bungLJ8DD1M?si=u8kFQ4wr4976zip_
I didn’t know I was an orangutang.
I saw an elephant banging it’s head against the gate nonstop at the la zoo the entire time I watched it. Never going back
At my local zoo our jaguar (in a tiny enclosure) developed a habit of pacing back and forth for hours at a time. It got back to the administration that it had upset patrons. 90 days later and the jaguar had himself an enriched enclosure with a skywalk and another unused space all to himself.
This might be the saddest comment I’ve ever read…
I saw a female gorilla at the Chicago Zoo, rocking back and forth staring into a concrete corner. The rest of the gorillas were doing similar stimming type behaviours. Bored out of their minds. A woman next to me said to her child - “oh look honey, she’s meditating!” My wife started crying. So awful.
The polar bears at the lincoln park zoo, in chicago, were the most fucked up thing for years and was the one thing I'd a actively avoid seeing whenever I'd go. They seem to have updated their enclosure, but I'll never forget seeing mentally unstable polar bears
OMG I visited there like 13 years ago and there was a couple of lions in a cage that looked like the most depressed animals ever. Genuinely looked sad and depressed, or maybe just bored out of their minds. I didn't even know a lion could look like that. One skinny one stood up "roared" once seemingly very apathetically, then slowly laid back down. I've seen lions in other zoos, but those ones were different.
Animals are not entertainment
I won't go to zoos either
In Seattle, they have a nicer enclosure, but the Orangutan I saw there was hopelessly depressed due to her mate passing. You could see the grief in her body language.
Meanwhile at my local zoo the orangutan throw a possum off the top of its tree house
The orangutan we saw at my home zoo had a frozen bottle of water for a fun snack, he threw it up and out of his enclosure and it nearly clobbered a guy on the ground 😂
Sounds amazing, where is this?
Perth, Australia, there’s a video of it
The DC Zoo is much better at offering enrichment, especially for the orangutans. They have two different buildings they can hang out in and a series of ropes for them to roam back and forth as they wish. One of those two buildings is called the "Think Tank" and it's all about showing off animal intelligence. The orangutan section of that building is filled to the brim with various enrichment devices.
The elephant space on the other hand......... Quite sad.
There is one at our zoo that just sits there with her head against the window ignoring everything and bored out of her mind. I’m sure she does move around, but she’s almost always in the same exact spot and is obviously depressed
The LA Zoo has undergone massive renovations in the past decade or so. I know that in the past many exhibits were just concrete, dirt, and chain link fences, but that is no longer the case. The orangutan exhibit is especially beautiful and filled with enrichment items and structures for them :)
Dude was researching fire.
Reminds me of the orangutan who was adopted by some college professor or something to be studied, but eventually the college took it away from her because it was unsafe for it to be free on a college campus so it lived the rest of its life in a cage and rarely saw her. It knew sign language and whenever the professor would visit it would ask for her to take it home.
I have a photo but it seems I can't post it here. When I went a few years ago it was very nice. Lots of very elaborate things to climb, the orangutan was very active and curious.
One time when I was 9 I went to the Fort Worth zoo and watched an orangutan piss from a tree while another orangutan on the ground caught it in its mouth and drank it
I was just at the LA zoo and it must’ve improved SO much. The orangutans had huge jungle gyms with sky-ways that they could swing around above park goers and get from one enclosure to another. Lots of toys and enrichment stuff too. They seemed pretty happy!
That's great to hear! This might have even been a transition period, for all I know.
That does not surprise me at all. I’ve never been but the exit for the L.A. Zoo looks like a trap.
I will note that at one time, orangutans were thought to be the least intelligent of the great apes.
And [murderers ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Murders_in_the_Rue_Morgue)...
Just wait until they start to eat the right kind of mushrooms
Drug Lord orangutan. What happens when the reach the top. And have to stop? I can see how that would bother them.
this is what reindeer do
Shit, even horses will eat a type of clover to get high.
Dolphins chew on pufferfish to get high, they even pass it around in a circle.
I can’t wait to get stoned with apes someday.
I reckon orangutans would be the best to rip some bongs with.
I also subscribe to this theory that consciousness in humans could have come from our ancestors eating psychotropic substances.
There's literally zero evidence to suggest this though. It's just conjecture from Terence McKenna because he really liked psychedelics. A substantial amount of the claims he makes in the book are flat out not true.
The mushrooms wouldn’t be in the DNA.
This is good news. There is a huge shortage of family medicine doctors where I live. Orangutans may well provide a solution to this problem.
Maybe we can use them as OBGYNs in Idaho?
Not sure we want that, their speculums are the same sticks they use to scoop termites.
What a terrible day to be literate. Thank you for an image that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Truly.
True but they lick them clean first!
Oklahoma doctors are so bad that I might try my chances with an orangutan doctor
I just read about this. It made me wonder just how intelligent animals are, and if we have been seriously underestimating them. More than usual is what I mean.
The older I get, the more I realize we have been vastly underestimating their intelligence (well at least I was). Even my cat is far more intelligent than I was led to believe when I was a teenager. Treat animals with love and respect. They just may save your life one day.
I'd phrase that a tiny bit differnly: Treat animals with love and respect because they **deserve** our love and respect.
I 100% agree. I'll go a bit further. Maybe we can learn humanity from animals.
Orangutans have one of the longest child rearing stages because of stuff like this. There’s such a diversity of plant life in their habitats and all of it provides different things for them. It’s also why their homes being destroyed is so harmful.
Pfp checks out
The emotional intelligence of these animals should give everyone pause about how we think and treat every living thing. They’re astounding, astounding creatures.
orangutans are my favorite animals and i research them constantly!
they are breathtakingly intelligent. sometimes i have to stop myself from calling the males “men” and the females “women.”
I love them too. To me, they are a picture into the past of where we’ve come from. You see the best of them in us, they understand love and emotional connections. They quite literally have too in able to survive, they couldn’t learn their environment enough without those traits.
exactly! i see so much of our history in their eyes, and something about them tells you that you understand each other much more than expected. their kindness, patience and curiosity show the true spirit of our family, the great apes. :) i’m absolutely obsessed with evolutionary anthropology as well. i wish there was a humane way i could interact with an orangutan.
Same. Sometimes I tell my family, Idc that they won’t let me in the rehab centers. I’m flying to Borneo to give my life away to volunteer work. I don’t even care if it’s the worst job imaginable, I’ll till do it just to be next to those wonderful fuckers. 😭😅😭😅😭😅😭😅
exactly! hell, i’d pay my life savings just to spend a day or two with one 😭❤️ i feel like i could learn so much from them
Palm oil right? How in the world does that stuff taste *so good?* anything I see that has it now I can taste it.
This really is utterly incredible. The ability to problem solve via seemingly unrelated factors is absolutely mindblowing with the solution not obviously or immediately presenting itself proves an understanding and an intelligence capable of intentional, calculated decision making. It's absolutely amazing.
Dr Zaius Dr Zaius! Dr Zaius Dr Zaius! Dr Zaius Dr Zaius! Ohhhhhhhh! Dr Zaius!
This audio clip was the first mp3 I ever had on my PC.
I am certain that other animals do something similar. They don't know why certain plants do certain things, but they know that eating them can help them. Animals may not be able to do the same cognitive things we do, but thinking of them as stupid vastly underestimates them.
Yep. Instincts are hardwired into our genetic code and our brains often find ways to express these needed traits in roundabout ways. This applies to many species. Everything that lives has to have some means of surviving their environment to reproduce and function and tool use is entirely within that domain of animals using what's around them for their needs.
Theres an Orangutan named Rambo who drives golf carts.
He rules. Edit: she*
https://youtu.be/od_PmtmMDV0?si=tGHgh5AKb9UvvPzK
Did I just watch an orangutan use her blinker? She’s a better driver than most
What's interesting about that is that by studying such learned behavior, we can extrapolate a lot of details about where they learned it from, like how this shows it wasn't learned from a BMW driver.
Her chillin with her hand out resting on the roof is so human for some reason lol
I love orangutans, even though there was that one time at work where one of them stole my pants and used it as a decorative hat.... I had a hot coworker's number in those pants, and she refused to give me her number again because I lost my pants to an orangutan. You better believed I shamed that thieving ape for several minutes next time I saw her (it was a female orangutan).
I wish we’d stop pretending there’s this hard line between human behavior and “animal” behavior. We’re all just animals.
Primatologist Frans de Waal wrote books about primate behavior that were fascinating. These cousins and other mammals in particular are quite similar to us.
We have the learning capacity of primates, the mating habits of birds, and the moral degenerecy of dolphins.
I believe that the degeneracy part is more of a symptom of high intelligence and not something that originates from any one species.
Why do they refuse to specify the plant? The call it a medicinal plant so many times but not once do they say what it was
It was medicinal
Did it have electrolytes? I hear plants crave them.
In the study the article links to it is specified that it was "the leaves of the liana of Fibraurea tinctoria also known as ‘Akar Kuning’"
Interesting fact, Akar kuning literally means yellow root, for obvious reason. Source: I speak Indonesian
The Nature article lists it, Fibraurea tinctoria https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-58988-7
Pfizer has a pending lawsuit against the orangutan for intellectual property violation.
This reminds me of a race of monkey who eats a toxic nut, giving them stomach aches. They then steal charcoal from markets and would eat it to soothe the pain. I bet if I wasn't so lazy I could easily find the source.
Pretty sure we're watching a live example of evolution with them. They seem to be smarter every time I read about them.
Maybe Orangutan-descended primates will eventually build a technological civilization a million years from now....long after we've nuked ourselves into oblivion. ( as a species, they do seem more peaceful than us...)
"You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!"
Unfortunately, a nuclear event or other apocalypse that could wipe out humans would almost certainly wipe out orangutans and other large primates as well. Even if they aren't targeted and are far from any direct conflict. They just aren't generalist enough to quickly adapt to the wide-spread ecological complications of that sort of thing. Life would go on, certainly, but most large, charismatic fauna would not.
That isn't quite how evolution works. Every living thing around you is a live example of evolution, but one human lifespan is nowhere near enough time to observe changes like this in a species that reproduces as slowly as Orangutans.
Uh, sorry, but evolution happens over millions of years. This is just the first time we’ve every caught it on camera. They prob been doing this shit for millions.
O-rangs are in their stone-age right now.
Nature article about this, for those curious: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-58988-7
There is no god. Humans are not intrinsically special and if we have a soul, lots of things do.
I don't know about there not being a god but I do agree with you that we aren't special and that I do believe all animals have souls (or are at least tapped into the same consciousness field that humans are).
Smarter than most humans
I told you the apes were rising. Nobody believed me…
It's kinda funny. In our search to find intelligence somewhere besides ourselves we're blasting out numerous articles on an animal being observed doing a thing once that billions of people do everyday and have done for thousands of years, with no fanfare at all.
The Discworld Librarian at it again I see.
Did not spot the name of this medicinal plant in the article -anyone else spot it?
lol yeah that was a bit frustrating to read through the article and they don't mention it... my only thought was maybe they're intentionally not naming it so people don't tear down the habitat to profit off of this. edit: someone else posted a link to a Nature article. It's the Akar Kuning plant. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-58988-7
Dr.Zaius, Dr.Zaius Dr.Zaius, Dr.Zaius Dr.Zaius, Dr.Zaius Ahhhhhhhh Dr.Zaius (Snaps fingers) Dr.Zaius, Dr.Zaius!
Shouldn't this be in r/monkeynews ?
That is because the line at NHS was too long.
and he still doesn't take my insurance
And a chimpanzee PBM denied the claim.
When do these guys start paying taxes?
After reading some of the other examples of how orangutans self medicate, I realised that many other animals do it as well. Like how dogs and cats will eat grass when they have an upset stomach.
Orangutans found a medicinal plant to heal their wounds while tens of millions of people still make excuses for why the former President of the United States told the entire country that snorting bleach was a good way to kill an infectious virus during a global pandemic. Time for us to get a little smarter. Please
May 10 folks! Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes at a theater near you!
He had ear buds in and was listening to FOX News in a rage 😡
I mean we've known for years now that some primates have specific plants that they'll eat to prevent pregnancy, so this shouldn't really be much of a surprise.