Orangutans are able to make cutlery

This is the first time this behavior has been valued in nonhuman primates. This was concluded by researchers from Vienna and St Andrews.

To the surprise of researchers from the university at Vienna and St AndrewsKera spontaneously faked a straight wire hook in the first test and in the second task they joined a curved wire to make a straight tool. Scientists have noted for the first time that orangutans have the ability to make hook-shaped tools, first seen in non-human primates. (Read: Auction for Stephen Hawking's objects reaches astronomical amounts)

A five-year-old human child has become a competent tool user and tool maker from an early age. However, when faced with no prior preparation for a task that required them to hook with a straight wire to take baskets from the bottom of the vertical tube, work proved more challenging for children than might think: children from three to five years are rarely successful and even at the age of seven, less than half of them were able to complete the task. Only at the age of eight, most children can make hooks. It is interesting that children of all age classes were tested successfully when they were given a demonstration on how to bend the hook and use it.

Therefore, even though small children seem to understand what tools are needed and have the ability to make functional tools, there seems to be cognitive barriers to innovation.

Cognitive biologists and comparative psychologists have now tested for the first time a type of primate in the task of bending hooks. "We faced an orangutan with a vertical tube containing a gift basket with a handle and a straight piece of wire, in the second task, with a horizontal tube containing a gift in the middle and a piece of wire bent to 90 degrees." Isabelle Laumer, who conducted research at the Leipzig Zoo in Germany , explained in a statement.

"Taking a vertical reward tube requires the orangutan to bend the hook in the wire to remove the basket from the tube." The horizontal tube in turn requires the ape to loosen the bent wire to make it long enough to push the food from the tube. "

Some orangutans dominate the task of bending hooks and straightening them. Two orangutans even completed both assignments in the first minute of the first exam. "Most orangutans fold their hooks directly with their teeth and mouth while keeping the rest of the tool straight, after which they immediately put it in the correct orientation, hook the handle and take it out of the basket." explain.