Orangutans fashion only known animal instrument

The man is not the only animal that can use tools to manipulate sound. The orangutans can also make musical instruments. The Orangutans are closely related to humans and this is a discovery that is that these orgutans use the instruments to decieve their prey shows that these animals can have intelligence and understanding

As wind instruments go, folded vegetation seems a little on the primitive side. Orang-utans have been found to blow through leaves to modulate the sound of their alarm calls, making them the only animal apart from humans known to use tools to manipulate sound.

The orang-utan's music, if you can call it that, is actually an alarm call known as a "kiss squeak".

Source: www.newscientist.com...

[edit on 6-8-2009 by sunny_2008ny]

Wow, now THAT is extremely cool!
Thanks for the article, S&F for sure
If orangutans are capable of that, it makes me wonder what ELSE they are capable of???

reply to post by sunny_2008ny

This is a cute little article. Thanks for posting it.

I don't know how earth-shattering it is. Perhaps other members will find more to say about it.

I myself am much more concerned about the human tendency to act like animals than I am about the animal tendency to do things that are intelligent.

reply to post by mpriebe81

If orangutans are capable of that, it makes me wonder what ELSE they are capable of???

The Orangutans can guess what others are thinking and can sense that others know or dont know something. The article says that this is called as a Theory of Mind, which is a cognitive ability.

Orangutans are also know to use spears of wood sticks to fish.

They have a mind that is like a human mind and therefore they may evolve eventually into a species that is intelligent.

[edit on 6-8-2009 by sunny_2008ny]

They have a mind that is like a human mind and therefore

...because having a human-like mind is a pre-requisite for intelligence?

they may evolve eventually into a species that is intelligent.

...because fashioning tools to hunt and make sounds clearly is not a sign that they're already intelligent, right?

reply to post by sunny_2008ny


i'm thinking more along the lines of, can i teach an orangutan how to chaffeur me to work every day?
Now THAT would be evolution.

reply to post by LordBucket

...because having a human-like mind is a pre-requisite for intelligence?

..because fashioning tools to hunt and make sounds clearly is not a sign that they're already intelligent, right?

A human like mind is not neccessary to have intelligence but if you have to be human like in your intelligence then to compare we use the human mind as a benchmark.

There are species that are very intelligent, ants, bats, chimps and they do use tools, and other things, they are intelligent but can they percieve intelligence? They may not, and so we say that they are not intelligent. The Orangutans may evolve eventually into intelligent species like the humans are, if what I meant.

As the above posters has said there are loads of species of animal that use tools, google search rook using tools and you will see that a monkey putting leaves in its mouth is nothing

reply to post by sunny_2008ny
Good OP. I've been interested in primate activities that seem to echo our earlier discoveries for a while now. The orangutan's use of the leaf as a deceptive warning of predators, could be a precursor behavior to making notes. Chimps, bonobos and S American monkeys have all been filmed using tools and being proactive on their environment.

An area in Africa called the Kapthurin Formation is a site of the earliest stone tools...500,000 years ago. The same area indicates a degree of co-habitation our early ancestors and early chimps. It's that echo that I find fascinating. We used stone tools for over a 100,000 years without moving further. At one point in our distant past, we began to shape the environment and the Orangutan is doing doing just that.

A video showing what a 'kiss squeak' sounds like...not exactly a ring-tone...



And the best and funniest example of planning, tool use and cool monkey behavior...

Originally posted by mpriebe81
reply to post by sunny_2008ny

 

i'm thinking more along the lines of, can i teach an orangutan how to chaffeur me to work every day?
Now THAT would be evolution.

You never know!

holy crap if that monkey is real in the last video riding the motorcycle i soooo want one even more now

that was the coolest thing ive ever seen in my life if that monkey is real

even if the motorcycle is remote controlled the way the monkey handled it was great

I saw a monkey playing with his, (you know what ) at the zoo , caught my brother too, yea, i guess you can say we are related

reply to post by Dramey


dont you think it wuld be way more cool if monkey`s & other animals were not forced to do unatural stuff like ride moter bikes to entertain uninteligent humans ?.
how about you hop on the bike & entertain the monkey since you think its sooo cool

Hey we can teach them how to serve us, and pick vegetables like in Planet of the Apes, and we can make slaves out of them... But if Obama gets his way and they get the right to vote, they'll still work for peanuts.

Originally posted by SaraThustra
Hey we can teach them how to serve us, and pick vegetables like in Planet of the Apes, and we can make slaves out of them... But if Obama gets his way and they get the right to vote, they'll still work for peanuts.

Have we not learned anything from the movies!

The sad thing is, what if we learned how to genetically make orangutans smarter? I'm sure if we could, we would. Then someone would use them to test if man can survive on a distant planet. O wait, maybe that's what we are!

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f85bf48040b6.jpg[/atsimg]

Originally posted by bdb818888
I saw a monkey playing with his, (you know what ) at the zoo , caught my brother too, yea, i guess you can say we are related

You caught your brother playing with a monkeys doodle at the zoo?



I don't wanna know how you're related

j/k

I've seen videos of monkeys that have used 'tools' before to coax ants out of nests, but then I also saw one where in order to catch a monkey, some people put salt in a hole in a large rock, the monkey could taste small amounts around the hole but when he reaches into the hole and grabs a handful, he cannot pull his fist back out unless he lets go. Doesnt let go, and got caught.

I don't attribute that with lack of ability to be intelligent, I've seen humans do much stupider things when they refuse to let go of whatever it is they want...

I watched a documentary about primates and how their intelligent recently.

A small fact I learned was that the ability to keep a beat, is uniquely human. Apparently no other creature has this ability.

I guess thats why I find this article so interesting.

There is also this story about the hot water spring monkeys of Japan. The monkeys never used to go into the hot water to beat the winter about 100(?) years ago. One day one monkey ventured into the hot water and realized that it helps him avoid the winter and snow. Then other monkeys also did the same thing, and now this trait is passed on by the parents to the child monkeys and this is a adaptive learning ability

[edit on 6-8-2009 by sunny_2008ny]