Like Humans, Apes Plan Their Travel, Share Their Travel Routes In Community

Humans have not only evolved from apes but they both resemble each other in one more way and that is how they travel. Like humans, apes also plan their travel and also communicate to other apes about it.

A study suggests, wild male orangutans not only plan their travels, but also communicate these plans to other orangutans. The findings of the study reveal that these great apes can look forward to the future.

Study

It was known that orangutans can plan for future needs, but scientists were unclear whether great apes employ this behavior in the wild. In order to find out, the scientists studied the calling patterns of orangutans living in dense, tropical forests.

Orangutans are loud, and male orangutans are louder still. Usually, this call is used to establish their status among other males, though it can also be used to signal to females, scientists said. The researchers tracked these loud calls made by 15 adult males.

Findings

Scientists found that the males faced the direction they planned to travel before emitting the “long calls” in that direction the night before a journey. If they changed travel plans the following morning, males often followed up with a call in the new direction planned.

“We found that males emitted long calls mostly facing the direction they travelled a few hours later, or even after a night’s rest,” said Karin Isler, co-author of the new study, in a news release.

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.