Humans like to discover. Presented with something we've never seen before, most of us will be compelled to explore and learn more about it. The same can't exactly be said for our closest living relatives--the great apes. Although decades of studies have shown that captive chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans will eagerly explore unfamiliar objects in a laboratory, great apes have rarely been observed in these encounters in the wild.
Humans like to discover. Presented with something we've never seen before, most of us will be compelled to explore and learn more about it. The same can't exactly be said for our closest living relatives -- the great apes. Although decades of studies have shown that captive chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans will eagerly explore unfamiliar objects in a laboratory, great apes have rarely been observed in these encounters in the wild.
Curiosity, which describes an individual's motivation to learn about the unknown, has been studied before in great apes; however, due to the logistical difficulties of studying wild animals, almost all tests have occurred in captivity."We know that apes are very curious to explore when they are in the safe and controlled conditions of a zoo," says Schuppli."But these results tell us little about what really triggered or suppressed curiosity over our evolutionary history.
During the trials, the orangutans spent on average 30 minutes in the vicinity of the novel log. During this time, they explored the novel log by intensively observing it over extended periods of time and approaching it closely. Overall, however, orangutans rarely touched the branch directly; and when they did, they often used a tool, such as a stick to do so.
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