Orangutans Reinvent The Hook
We all know primates are among the smartest animals on Earth, but if you discover the results of experiments like this, you’ll realize how amazing they can be.
The orangutans have managed to blow us away with the ability to make a hook.
Scientists have discovered a practice never seen in any species except ours. Orangutans proved to be one step ahead of other primates, with a successful experience in which they used all their imagination and skill.
Results of the orangutan experiment
In the study carried out by the universities of Vienna and St. Andrews, it was possible to observe how monkeys are able to use different wires to gain access to places where their fingers cannot reach.
In the first test, it was seen how the orangutan managed to make a hook with a straight wire. The goal was to achieve a reward placed in a basket inside a tube, for which he managed to make a hook with his teeth, keeping the rest of the wire straight.
In the second test, a curved wire was used with which, in the first attempts, they could not reach the reward placed in a horizontal tube.
To reach their goal, several orangutans managed, in a few minutes, to unfold the wire enough to reach the target without problems and push it out of the tube, an action never seen before.
amazing results
To assess the scope of these findings and compare the intelligence of these primates with that of humans, children of different ages were subjected to similar tests, with surprising results.
From the age of five, a human being is able to design and use very complex tools to achieve goals.
However, when they were presented with the problem of retrieving a basket from the bottom of a tube with the only help of a straight wire, things got quite complicated.
Between the ages of three and five, most children were unsuccessful, and few had the idea of bending the wire to make a hook.
Even a high percentage of seven-year-olds did not reach their goal, which gives us an idea of the level of intelligence of orangutans in solving problems.
Until they reach children at the age of eight, the success rate of the majority has not been seen. What caught our attention was that children, regardless of their age, were much more successful when they were previously shown the possibilities of a wire, although the smaller ones did not do it, despite having managed to understand the functions of the hook.
Isabelle Laumer, head of the experiment at Zoo Leipzig, Germany, said that study showed that orangutans have a much greater skill in tool use and tool-making than previously thought. And that they are capable of surpassing human beings up to eight years of age in creating these apparatuses.
Future of species
This magnificent species is in grave danger of extinction. Of the Borneo orangutan, only 104,700 specimens remain, while the population of the Sumatran orangutan does not reach 14,600 individuals.
The tropical leaf forests where they live are being reduced day by day to extract wood, minerals or to turn them into crop fields. Currently, only 50% of orangutans live in a natural state.
On the other hand, the market for illegal orangutan breeders is also affecting their population and, after having their mother dead, they are taken on a journey that very few survive, to be sold as pets in different parts of the world.
Until much more stringent measures are adopted, its population will continue to decline and, as has happened with many other species, we will lose a totally irreplaceable asset altogether.
