INTERNATIONAL ORANGUTAN DAY is next week. In honor of this day, let’s celebrate the ways in which orangutans — which share 97% of our DNA — are just like us.
Orangutans are one of the most intelligent of the great apes, known to track the displacement of objects, play games, laugh and display emotion, mimic human speech and behavior, and even partake in calculated reciprocity.
They rely heavily on facial expressions and body language to communicate, and are the only non-human primate to talk about the past. Recent studies indicate orangutans use displaced reference, a highly beneficial ability, especially for orangutans mothers, who signal to their dependent young of danger after it has passed.
The dynamics between orangutans and their young indicate a shared culture exists within the species. Mothers teach their young about which fruits to eat, how to swing from branches, and the trick to capturing ants. This exchange of knowledge, or social learning, is possible because of an orangutan’s acute memory — which is able to recall memories from weeks, even years ago, and produce cognitive maps of the forests they inhabit.
Unfortunately, the length of infant dependency is what makes orangutans so vulnerable. And today, orangutans, like so many other RAINFOREST species, are endangered — with estimates indicating we lose 100 orangutans every week.
Our relatives of the RAINFORESTS, while so much like us, face a future much different from our own. On this INTERNATIONAL ORANGUTAN DAY, let’s give them the one they deserve.
