If you’re tired of hearing about disasters across the US, the risk of World War III from Biden’s Ukraine trip, and want to see something sweet and cute, then we found just the video for you.
That comes from the zoo in Los Angeles, where an orangutan at the zoo retrieved a baby bottle dropped by a toddler by fashioning a hook out of some paper to fish the bottle out of the water. Watch that here:
Fox News 29, a local Fox affiliate, reported on the incident, saying:
An orangutan at the Los Angeles Zoo got creative to receive a baby bottle dropped into a pool of water by a toddler on Feb. 17.
The clever primate fashioned some paper into a hook in order to reach the bottle, which was on the other side of a fence.
CaShawnna Wright shared video of the incident on TikTok with the text “my son dropped his bottle near the orangutans at the zoo, watch what happens next.”
The video shows the crafty ape using its improvised tool to get the bottle.
Wright said that it was the first time she has taken her son to the zoo.
“I decided to record the video because I thought it would be something my dad, who passed away recently, would have liked to see,” Wright added.
Orangutans are one of the smartest animal species and are even known to fashion and use tools, like the primate in the video. Inverse, noting that in an article on orangutan intelligence, said:
Like other high primates (chimpanzees, gorillas, you), orangutans use tools. They, like people, aren’t always born with the answers—but these creatures are sensational learners. Aside from the fact that in the wild orangutan moms actually teach their offspring things (like nest building and foods not to eat), they can also watch people and learn how to accomplish such tasks as sawing wood, applying insect repellent, use soap, and adopt language (like miming or sign language—orangutans don’t have the physical ability to speak like we do).
Additionally, orangutans are one of the only species that can talk about the past, as Science Magazine noted in a report, saying:
When wild orangutans spot a predator, they let out a loud “kiss-squeak,” a call that sounds like a human smooching. That noise tells tigers and other enemies, “I’ve seen you,” scientists believe, and it also lets other orangutans know danger is near. Now, researchers report having heard orangutans making this call long after predators have passed—the first evidence that primates other than humans can “talk” about the past.
“The results are quite surprising,” says Carel van Schaik, a primatologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland who was not involved in the work. The ability to talk about the past or the future “is one of the things that makes language so effective,” he says. That suggests, he adds, that the new findings could provide clues to the evolution of language itself.
Featured image credit: screengrab from embedded video
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