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Is Orangutan Culture Made of Ideas?

orangutan culture cognition

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#1    Insanity

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Posted 28 December 2012 - 03:59 AM

Is Orangutan Culture Made of Ideas?

The chimpanzee’s clever use of sticks to fish for termites is fairly well known. In 1964, Jane Goodall announced her groundbreaking discovery to the world, writing in the journal Nature, “During three years in the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in Tanganyika, East Africa, I saw chimpanzees use natural objects as tools on many occasions. These objects consisted of sticks, stalks, stems and twigs, which were used mainly in connexion with eating insects, and leaves which were used as ‘drinking tools’ and for wiping various parts of the body.” While the collection of non-human animals known to use tools has expanded significantly in the nearly fifty years since Goodall watched her first Gombe chimp, the act of shoving sticks into termite mounds and snacking on the termites clinging to it has become the iconic example of non-human tool use, the model by which we judge all other possible forms. Perhaps lesser known is that another ape, the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii), also fishes with sticks. Instead of fishing for termites, they fish for honey.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/2012/12/20/is-orangutan-culture-made-of-ideas/

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#2    R4z3rsPar4d0x

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Posted 28 December 2012 - 05:35 AM

Iv seen chimps use stones to break up hard things as well such as hard nuts, and I would assume that most apes use some form of tool

Edited by R4z3rsPar4d0x, 28 December 2012 - 05:36 AM.

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#3    FurthurBB

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Posted 28 December 2012 - 01:33 PM

View PostR4z3rsPar4d0x, on 28 December 2012 - 05:35 AM, said:

Iv seen chimps use stones to break up hard things as well such as hard nuts, and I would assume that most apes use some form of tool

The best ones I have seen are mountain gorillas and chimpanzees disabling traps.  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120719-young-gorillas-juvenile-traps-snares-rwanda-science-fossey/  http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8962000/8962747.stm





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