Despite even the most striking similarities, we humans persist in thinking that we’re special and different from other animals. However, new evidence presented recently at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists is further narrowing the gap between us humans and our primate relatives.
The new findings relate evidence which specifically shows that Bornean orangutans have developed their own unique methods of “fishing” for food.
These hungry apes have actually learned to use sticks to poke into ponds and other bodies of water — not necessarily to spear prey, but at least as a means to scare fish out of hiding and into waiting orangutan hands.
Though perhaps not so sophisticated as complex fishing poles with flywheels, lures and counterweights, the tools used by orangutans are nonetheless effective and easy to use. The anthropologists responsible for publishing this latest finding have reported that several orangutans have seemingly “learned” the technique independently. Other animals have been seen observing their neighbors during their fishing trips, signifying that perhaps the orangutans are also learning to fish by example.
That fishing via the use of tools has emerged in a primate species like orangutans is pretty amazing, but these findings also open up new avenues of thought not only in terms of how we humans look at our primate neighbors, but also in terms of our understanding of how and when our ancestors first learned how to hunt for meat with tools. While we humans are generally good swimmers, orangutans are known to be notoriously bad swimmers.
Interestingly, the orangutans in question probably began their fisher-ape lives quite passively: perhaps one day a hungry orangutan saw a catfish stranded on the shore of a pond and decided to have a nibble.
Fish is a wonderful dietary staple and orangutans have obviously recognized the fact — so much so that their previously passive fishing habits are now quite deliberate and directed. Orangutans are clearly evolving their dietary habits, perhaps in a manner similar to the way in which the diets of early human
ancestors changed over time.
Previously, anthropologists believed that meat-eating hadn’t become a popular hominid dietary style until just about two million years ago. At this point, the Homo genus had already branched off and hominids were on their way to producing us, Homo sapiens. With this new orangutan evidence, anthropologists are now considering that fishing could have evolved quite early on in the Homo lineage. After all, if a great red ape can do it, why not early hominids?
The traditional take on meat-eating early hominids is that as dietary intake of meat increased, so too did consumption of essential fatty acids. Meats, and fish in particular, are rich in fatty acids, which are crucial for brain development. Thus, the increasing prevalence of carnivorous diets among hominids might have had monumental implications for the evolution of Homo brains. Because modern man’s greatest treasure is his frontal lobe, this new evidence from orangutans points out a potential analog with early hominid development. It shows how the learning of simple tactics of taking advantage of the environment might have provided early human ancestors with a diet fortified for brain health and development.
Of course, it is possible that the orangutans in question somehow picked up their super suave fishing techniques from watching their human cousins — Borneo is in fact inhabited by several million people as well as orangutans. Nevertheless, all it would have taken for Homo species to start fishing is one hominid discovering the wonderful world of sushi; it’s likely that tactics such as those used by the orangutans reported here could have spread. Bornean orangutans have been seen fishing in pairs and early hominids could have done likewise.
These findings make it even more obvious how important it is to preserve and to study our cousins, the orangutans. They are obviously quite an intelligent and inventive species, and even more than that, they may provide us with invaluable and incomparable modern analogs for our long dead hominid ancestors. By watching them, we can learn more about ourselves and maybe realize that we’re not quite as special as we’ve always thought.
