How smart are orangutans? - Lu Gao

3,685,270 views ・ 2016-08-30

TED-Ed


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Fu Manchu was one of the most notorious escape artists
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at the Omaha Zoo in the 1960s.
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But he wasn't a performer,
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he was an orangutan.
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The keepers who locked his enclosure every night
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were baffled to find him outside the next day
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hanging out with friends in a tree,
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or sunning on the roof.
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Only after installing cameras did they realize
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Fu Manchu had been picking the lock
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with a metal wire that he kept hidden under his cheek pouch.
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The keepers shouldn't have been surprised at Fu Manchu's cunningness.
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Along with our other great ape cousins,
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the gorillas,
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chimps,
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and bonobos,
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they belong to our Hominidae family tree,
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which stretches back 14 million years.
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But it's not just their striking red hair
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that makes orangutans unique among our cousins.
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As the only great apes from Asia,
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orangutans have adapted to a life high in the rain forest canopies.
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Many of the skills they learn are transmitted through the special bond
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they have with their mothers,
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the most extended in the animal kingdom next to humans.
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Orangutan mothers usually give birth to one baby at a time,
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waiting up to eight years before having another.
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This gives the young,
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who begin as fully dependent infants,
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plenty of time to learn how to climb
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and distinguish the hundreds of plants and fruits that make up their diet.
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Female orangutans even stay with their mothers into their teen years
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to learn child-rearing.
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As they grow up, orangutans also develop a complex set of cooperative social skills
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by interacting with their peers and siblings.
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Much like ourselves,
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young orangutans involuntarily mimic the facial expressions
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and emotions of their playmates,
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with behaviors that closely parallel human smiling and laughter.
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Once they finally venture out on their own,
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orangutans continue to develop their resourcefulness,
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putting the skills they've learned into practice.
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Adults build a new nest each night by carefully weaving twigs together,
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topping them with soft leaves, pillows, and blankets.
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This process requires dexterity, coordination, and an eye for design.
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Orangutans also use a variety of tools to make their lives in the jungle easier.
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They turn branches into fly swatters and back scratchers,
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construct umbrellas when it rains,
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make gloves from leafy pads,
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and even use leaves as bandages to dress their wounds.
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But orangutan intelligence goes far beyond jungle survival.
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Research in controlled environments has shown that orangutans are self-aware,
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being one of the few species to recognize their own reflections.
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They also display remarkable foresight, planning, and cognition.
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In one experiment, researchers taught an orangutan to use a straw
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to extract his favorite fruit soup from a box.
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That orangutan was later given the choice between the straw
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or a grape that could be eaten right away,
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and he chose the straw just in case he was given another box of soup.
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In another experiment, orangutans figured out how to reach peanuts
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at the bottom of long tubes by spitting water into them.
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While orangutans are able to pass cognitive tests with flying colors,
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there are certain problems that they need our help to solve.
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Indonesia has the world's highest rate of deforestation,
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and millions of acres of rain forest are burned annually
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to support the logging and palm oil industries.
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Deforestation exposes the 30,000 orangutans remaining in the wild
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to poachers.
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They kill mothers so that baby orangutans can be sold as exotic pets.
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But fortunately, the story often doesn't end here.
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Orphans can be confiscated and given a second chance.
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At special forest schools, they recover from emotional trauma
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and continue to develop essential life skills.
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Against all odds, these orphans demonstrate incredible resilience
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and readiness to learn.
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In Malay, the word orangutan translates literally to "the person of the forest,"
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a reminder of our common lineage.
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And despite orangutans being some of the smartest animals on Earth,
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outsmarting their extinction requires the creativity, empathy, and foresight
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that our species share.
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