Laumer et al show that orangutans can spontaneously innovate a hook tool out of a straight
piece of wire to solve a novel problem. Image credit: Laumer et al
Posted on 11/12/2018 2:57:12 PM PST by ETL
Orangutans are among the most intelligent primates. They have human-like long-term memory, routinely use a variety of sophisticated tools in the wild and construct elaborate sleeping nests each night from foliage and branches. ..."
“The hook-bending task has become a benchmark paradigm to test tool innovation abilities in comparative psychology,” said co-author Dr. Alice Auersperg, a scientist at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna.
“Considering the speed of their hook innovation, it seems that orangutans actively invented a solution to this problem rather than applying routined behaviors.”
“In the study, we confronted Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) with a vertical tube containing a reward basket with a handle and a straight piece of wire and, in a second task, with a horizontal tube containing a reward at its center and a piece of wire that was bent at 90 degrees,” Dr. Laumer explained.
“Retrieving the reward from the vertical tube thus required the orangutans to bent a hook into the wire to fish the basket out of the tube. The horizontal tube in turn required the apes to unbent the bent piece of wire in order to make it long enough to push the food out of the tube.”
Several orangutans mastered the hook bending task and the unbending task. Two orangutans even solved both tasks within the first minutes of the very first trial.
“The orangutans mostly bent the hooks directly with their teeth and mouth while keeping the rest of the tool straight,” Dr. Laumer said.
“Thereafter they immediately inserted it in correct orientation, hooked the handle and pulled the basket up.”
“Finding this capacity in one of our closest relatives is astonishing,” said co-author Dr. Josep Call, a researcher at the University of St Andrews, UK.
(Excerpt) Read more at sci-news.com ...
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Inventive humans make computers to design the 747.
Looks like a DEM in a voting booth.
Not only can they talk, they can THINK, they can reason
Is that Robin Williams?
Could be. Looks like him.
lol
Can imagine an experiment where the orangutan is given a blank ballot, to see if it can fill in the ovals and stick it into a provisional ballot box.
ROFL!!
A long way to go but maybe in time they will catch up with us. They already passed the Dummyrats.
Someday... maybe they can outsmart crows...
Problem solving in New Caledonian Crows
https://youtu.be/UDg0AKfM8EY
Complex problem solving
https://youtu.be/cbSu2PXOTOc
Birds build nests. Beavers build dams. A lot more impressive.
They can smash a beer bottle and call it a knife too.
Thanks ETL.
I’ll tell you a little story that’s not about apes but about my dog. I have a back yard that is fenced and accessed by Bootsy(the dog) by a pet door in the back door. The front yard is a common area so to speak as it has no fence and is only accessed by my letting him out of the front door. The other day as I am sitting at my puter looking out my window into the back yard I see Bootsy talking to his friend Jake( neighbors dog) through the back fence. Suddenly he runs back to the house and runs into puter room and “tells” me he needs out into the front yard. I get up and let him out and his friend Jake(neighbors dog) is waiting for him and they both run and play. Now that sounds simple enough but think about it. Bootsy had the thought process to understand and figure out to come ask to be let out the front to go play with his friend.Say what you will but that is a very complicated thought process for an animal. There is no such thing as a dumb animal, just ignorant humans who are too blind to see.
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