Orangutans

[Homicidalheathen]

Primates In The News

<P class=b>Primates — and strange facsimiles thereof — have been much in the news. Here are three cases of the animals' unusual behavior or appearance.

Self-Medicating Orangutans

<P class=b>Orangutans have now been discovered to use drugs — of their own manufacture.

Helen Morrogh-Bernard, a primatologist of Cambridge University, watched four Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) making a "soothing balm" that they applied to themselves to relieve their aches and pains. She observed them doing this in Central Kalimantan's Sabangau Peat Swamp Forest.

Morrogh-Bernard first observed the behavior in 2005, when she came upon an adult female orangutan picking leaves (of the genus Commelina), chewing them, and with saliva creating a lather. She spread this on the back of her left arm.

Since then, Morrogh-Bernard has observed three others of the species using the technique, and has published her results in the International Journal of Primatology. Humans are known to make the same lather the same way. It is not yet known which primate was the first to come up with the balm.

More on animals self medicating:

http://studentresearch.wcp.muohio.edu/MedicinalPlants/SelfmedicationPrimates-97.pdf

[Simon Bar Sinister]

I'd bet on the orangutans

[dragonluv]

Very interesting. I think this is the same lady, that did the greats works similar to Jane Goodall (with the chimpanzees) and Diane Fossey (with the gorillas). All of these ladies were connected to Richard Leaky. Some of my teachers called Richard Leaky the founding father of physical anthropology. If my headache was not bad, I would have done quick research to verify if this is the same lady. Regardless, primates are smart.