Vital lessons at orang-utan 'Oxbridge'

[muriel_volestrangler]

(ie 'elite university' - think 'Ivy League' in the USA)

The discovery of a group of privileged primates teaching each other sophisticated behaviour hints at the way human intellect has evolved

Suaq Balimbing, in the Kluet swamps, is one of Sumatra's least attractive destinations. It has mud, a profusion of biting insects, oppressive heat, and little else. To humans, it is a place to avoid. But to the island's wild orang-utans, Suaq is a magnet. It is the simian equivalent of Oxbridge, a place to obtain a privileged education so they can stand out among their peers.

At Suaq they learn from other wild orang-utans how to make tools, to play jumping games and even to blow kisses to each other at night. Stay at Suaq and you become a special animal.

And that, say researchers - writing in the latest issue of Scientific American - has critical implications for humans. The existence of a place in the wild where apes undergo intense social learning suggests a route by which humans acquired their intelligence, as we evolved from primitive apemen to Homo sapiens.

'Our analyses of orang-utans suggest that not only does culture - social learning of special skills - promote intelligence, it favours the evolution of greater and greater intelligence in populations over time,' says Carel van Schaik, director of the Anthropological Institute at Zürich University.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1749987,00.html

[xchrom]

1. beautiful! amazing to see ''learning'' as a component

of evolution.

[yebrent]

2. How much more don't we know?

Humans are destroying so many wild ecosystems just as we are learning about these amazing unique places. The article reminds me of the Congo bias, small clearings deep in the Congo rain forests where diverse species of animals gather (and coexist) to eat unique plant life and drink from water holes filled with mineral rich water that is important for many species survival. Elephants and Gorillas have been observed there behaving in ways that have never been seen before, including washing their food in the mineral rich water.

Have you seen The Fire of Life?