Awareness of the future: Wild orangutans can plan think ahead - ABC Online

apes think ahead and plan for the future: Wild orangutans in Sumatra apparently terminate on the day before by loud calls to wherever they are traveling. They want to not only deter rivals.

orangutans often plan in advance where the journey is to go the next day. Male conspecifics share the night before with the direction in which they want to move on the next day, found out anthropologist at the University of Zurich. . The long calls are panning to animate females and deter other males

releases of Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) take place not exactly subtle: such cries take up to four minutes and can be heard a mile away, Carel report van Schaik and colleagues in the journal “PLOS One.” For the volume of the males need fat cheeks: For this they grow after puberty cartilaginous Backenwülste which enhance the sound

females move in the same direction

.In the dense tropical swamp forest of Sumatra apes announce their plans through calls in the planned direction of travel. If they change their plans in the morning, divide this by a reputation in the new direction. But why do they do it? The researchers observed females who had heard the call and moved in this direction on travel day. At the same time scientists evaluate the reputation as a warning to lower-ranking males, to keep at a distance.

Orangutans are solitary and usually only swing through the branches of the tropical forest, however, they maintain social contacts. Every night they build a new nest in the treetops. The researchers followed some animals in the Gunung Leuser National Park in Aceh Province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra days. The monkeys were moving in an area of ??about 2000 acres, and put back in the day about a kilometer.

“Orangutans are again a little more closely resembles”

That apes can plan ahead, researchers reported several times after – but in animals in captivity. That they put this capability in the remote wilderness of the day, now this study shows. “Our study shows that wild orang-utans are not only living in the here and now, but the future can imagine and even communicate their plans. In this sense, they are a piece of us with it again become more similar, “says van Schaik.

Sumatra there are still about 6600 orangutans on the Indonesian island of Borneo, nor 40000-60000, estimates Ian Singleton, director of the Sumatran orang-utan conservation program in Medan. “By far the biggest threat to them is the loss of their habitat, mainly through deforestation and plantations,” he says. “We have a big problem on Sumatra., The Government of Aceh wants clearing more forests for mining and road construction”