“This documents external self-medication, applying the leaves as a poultice in the same way humans treat wounds and pain,” said Michael Huffman, an associate professor at Kyoto University’s Wildlife Research Center. It’s the first record.” Japan is not involved in the new research.
Lacus’ wound showed no signs of infection and closed within a week.
The discovery provides new evidence that orangutans can identify and use plants to relieve pain. A growing body of research suggests that other animal species also self-medicate to varying degrees of sophistication.
The researchers behind the study believe that great apes’ ability to identify medicine and treat wounds may be traced back to their common ancestor with humans.
New evidence that orangutans self-medicate
This discovery was made possible because Laks spends his days in a protected rainforest called the Suak Balimbin Research Area in Indonesia’s Gunung Leuser National Park.
Researchers have been observing orangutans in the area since 1994. Approximately 150 orangutans currently live in the area. Lacus, who was first seen there in 2009, either lives there or frequents it.
Scientists often track orangutan individuals in this area from early in the morning, when they leave their night nests, until they build a new night nest about 12 hours later.
“We don’t disturb orangutans,” said the new study’s author, Isabel Romer, a primatologist and cognitive biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Germany. “They’re totally allowing us to follow them.”
Raumer said researchers had never previously observed orangutans in this region self-medicated like Lacus, and it was not clear how they did it.
Saidi Agam / Suak Project
Lacus may have learned how to treat the wound through “personal innovation” after accidentally touching a wound with painkiller leaf juice, Raumer said. Alternatively, he may have learned the behavior culturally from other orangutans early in his life.
Orangutans have been shown to be socially learned and able to use tools. They acquire advanced knowledge about food from their mothers.
“They learn a lot about, for example, what kinds of fruit to eat, where to find it, when to find it, when it ripens, how to process it, etc.,” Raumer says. “Some orangutans eat up to 400 different types of plants. …This is pretty intensive knowledge that they really need to acquire.”
Did humans learn about medicinal plants from animals?
Evidence of self-medication in animals has increased in recent decades.
In the 1960s, renowned primatologist Jane Goodall noticed that chimpanzees in Tanzania were eating whole leaves of a plant that was later identified as a type of aspiria shrub. Decades later, Huffman wrote a paper describing how different populations of chimpanzees ate the bitter pith of certain daisies, but it was very rare and he did not know if they were sick from other behaviors. This was only when it was suggested.
Researchers believe chimpanzees developed such behavior to treat or prevent parasites.
In the 1990s and 2000s, a large body of research identified further examples of self-medication.
A remarkable 2008 study of Bornean orangutans found that three females rubbed themselves with a paste of chewed Dracaena cantorei, which is used by local indigenous peoples to deal with joint and bone pain. It is recorded.
Huffman said he believes all animal species self-medicate to some degree. Researchers have even documented the practice in insects.
“This shows that animals can control their own lives,” he said. “They can adapt and act flexibly to specific survival situations.”
He theorized that ancient humans derived their ability to identify medicinal plants and substances from detailed observations of animals.
“Many of the medicines that humans have used throughout our history as a species arose from our close connection to nature, from seeking advice from other animals, and from extrapolating from what we have learned. '' Huffman said. “I don’t know of any plant that has been recorded as being used medicinally by animals that hasn’t also been used by humans. And I think humans are the ones who learned from animals.”
Romer said the research team’s findings in a species that is 97% genetically similar to humans could provide insight into how ancient primates developed a penchant for pursuing medicine. He said there is.
“It’s possible that our last common ancestor already exhibited similar ointment behavior,” she says.
Laumer added that the new discovery shows how much we can learn from orangutans, which are considered endangered. The rainforests home to Sumatra’s orangutans are disappearing as land is converted to agricultural land and climate change intensifies wildfires.
The latest estimates from 2016 show that Less than 14,000 left.
Source: www.nbcnews.com
