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It has long been reported that the genome of humans and apes is nearly 99 percent identical. A similar DNA sequence isn’t the only thing shared between these two species. A new study might confirm orangutans have become the only non-human primates to discuss the past.
Carel van Shaik, a primatologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, has been studying the alarm call of orangutans. Researchers have observed the primates sounding the alarm when potential predators are nearby. The sound is likened to that of a human kissing noise.
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“The results are quite surprising,” admits van Schaik. Orangutan mothers have been shown to wait nearly seven minutes after a potential predator has left before sounding the alarm. This proves there is a displaced reference, or “capacity to transmit information about something that is not present.”
During the experiment, the team covered themselves with white, spotted, patterned, or tiger-striped sheets. They began crawling around Sumatra’s Ketambe forest floor below seven mother orangutans. Aware of the ridiculous yet effective method, they recorded the “kissing” alarm in nearly half of the encounters.
phys.org
Mostly troubled by the tiger stripe blanket, the orangutans only made the sound once when the threat was visible. The rest of the sounds were delayed, with one being heard nearly 20 minutes after the threat had vanished.
This older female orangutan “stopped what she was doing, grabbed her infant, defecated [a sign of distress], and started slowly climbing higher in the tree” before remaining silent, reported researcher Adriano Reis e Lameira.
The findings of the study suggest a ‘high-order cognition.’ This lends itself to the idea that the ability to understand and vocalize about the past. Future studies will need to be performed to publish this conclusion.
phys.org