Bulldozer - Apr 24th, 2015
Orangutans (forest people) are large apes. Distributed only in Borneo and Sumatra. They spend their entire lives in trees, almost never descending to the ground. Males are very large - height up to 1.5 meters, weight over 100 kilograms. The arm span is more than two meters. Female orangutans are much smaller.
Despite their massive build, orangutans are excellent tree climbers. The structure of the limbs helps them in this - the arms are very strong and long, and the orangutan can make grasping movements with its toes, because the thumb can turn out to meet the rest. The coat is a beautiful reddish-brown color. Orangutans also spend the night in trees in peculiar nests made of branches, which they build for one night. Orangutans are also afraid of water and cannot swim, although they live in the jungle.
Orangutans eat mainly plant foods - leaves, tree branches, various fruits, but they are not completely vegetarians, because they also eat insects, eggs of chicks, and sometimes even the chicks themselves. Despite their large size, orangutans eat little and can go without eating anything for a long time.
Pregnancy in female orangutans is long, almost like in humans - 8.5 months. Only one baby is born; twins are rare. Babies suck their mother's milk for three or four years, and then their mother raises them for several more years. Further, orangutans lead a solitary lifestyle. Males defend their territory. Females can sometimes live together in a flock with their offspring. The lifespan of an orangutan is very long - natural conditions up to 30 years, and in captivity even up to 60 years.
Photo: orangutan resting on vines.
The character of the orangutan is peaceful and calm, only males sometimes yell wildly (the so-called “long cry”) at each other to intimidate, or when they call for a female. This cry gave rise to the false idea that orangutans are bloodthirsty and vicious.
Orangutans are very intelligent primates, some are able to use different tools to get food. Deforestation and other human activities have led to the fact that the survival of cute orangutans is now under threat.
Video: Wild Planet: Orangutan - Forest Orphan
The orangutan is one of the three most famous apes. Together with the gorilla and chimpanzee, he is one of the animals closest to humans. You can often find an erroneous spelling of the name of this animal - orangutan. But the word "orangutan" in the local language means "debtor", and the word "orangutan" is translated as "forest man". There are two known species of orangutans - Bornean and Sumatran.
Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus).
The appearance of these monkeys is very unique and unlike any other animal. In an upright position, the height of orangutans is only 120-140 cm, but their weight can reach 80-140 kg, in rare cases even 180 kg! This is due to the fact that orangutans have relatively short limbs and a thick belly, so when small size these animals have heavy weight. The body of orangutans is rather square in shape, the limbs are strong and muscular. Orangutans' arms are so long that in a vertical position they hang below their knees, but their legs, on the contrary, are short and crooked. The feet and palms are large, and on both the arms and legs the thumb is opposed to the rest. This makes it easier to grip branches when climbing trees. At the ends of the fingers there are nails like those of a person. The skull of orangutans is convex with a highly developed facial part. The eyes are close set, the nostrils are relatively small. These animals have well-developed facial muscles and often grimace. Orangutans have well-expressed sexual dimorphism (differences in the body structure of males and females): females are smaller and thinner (up to 50 kg), males are not only heavier, but also have a special ridge of skin around the face. This ridge forms the facial disc, which is especially pronounced in old males; in addition, males have more pronounced mustaches and beards on their faces. The color of the fur of young animals is fiery red, while that of older animals is darker - brown.
The body of orangutans is covered with long, rather sparse hair, which hangs down like a fringe in older animals.
Orangutans live only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra in the Malay Archipelago, that is, their natural range is relatively small. In nature, these animals inhabit exclusively tropical forests, and spend most of their lives in trees, rarely descending to the ground. They move through trees, moving from branch to branch, and where the distance between neighboring trees is large, orangutans use flexible thin trunks or vines. When moving, these monkeys often hang by their hands and generally use their forelimbs more actively than their hindlimbs. Unlike other monkeys, heavy orangutans do not jump from branch to branch. Despite this, signs of broken arms and legs are sometimes found in old animals.
Orangutans use tree branches to sleep at night: more often they sleep directly on the branches, sometimes they build primitive nests in the crowns.
A distinctive feature of these animals is their solitary lifestyle, which is generally not characteristic of primates. Orangutans differ sharply in their habits from other species of monkeys: they are extremely quiet and silent, their voices are rarely heard in the forest. Their character is very calm and peaceful. Orangutans never get into fights, behave imposingly, and move slowly. We can say that they have a certain intelligence. In the forest, each animal has its own area, but protecting the territory does not involve aggression. Orangutans avoid human proximity and, instead of visiting human settlements in search of food, seek solitude in the depths of the forest. When caught, they do not offer strong resistance.
Orangutans feed on plant foods - leaves and fruits of trees, and occasionally they eat the eggs of birds and small animals. They collect food in the crowns, leisurely picking and chewing shoots. Like many monkeys, orangutans do not like water, so they avoid swimming across rivers, and when it rains, they cover their heads with torn leaves.
An orangutan carefully examines the contents of the egg it has just eaten.
These animals reproduce all year round. To attract a female, the male begins to roar loudly throughout the forest. If there are several rivals, they each try to lure the female to their side with their songs, but they rarely leave the boundaries of their own territory. The female selects the strongest gentleman by sound and visits his territory to mate. Pregnancy lasts 8.5 months. The female gives birth to one, or less often two, cubs weighing 1.5-2 kg. The newborn is covered with rather long hair and clings tightly to the mother's skin.
A female orangutan tenderly cares for her baby.
At first, the female holds the baby on her chest, then the grown baby moves onto the mother’s back. The mother feeds the cub with milk until he is 2-3 years old, then he accompanies her for another couple of years. Only at the age of 5-6 years do orangutans begin independent life. They become sexually mature at the age of 10-15 years, and live on average 45-50. Thus, during her life, a female can raise no more than 5-6 cubs, that is, orangutans are extremely infertile.
A baby orangutan learns to climb “vines.”
IN natural environment this does not matter, since large orangutans living on treetops have practically no enemies. But nevertheless, these animals are very rare. Orangutan numbers are declining due to extermination tropical forests. The already small range of these monkeys has declined catastrophically over the past 40 years. IN last decades In addition to the destruction of forests, another problem was added - poaching. As orangutans become increasingly rare, their price on the black market increases and more hunters venture into the forest to hunt their prey. Often hunters kill the mother just to take the cub away.
Female orangutan with baby.
Young orangutans are resold to private zoos, but not for breeding. The usual fate of such animals is to be a toy for people. Taking advantage of the fact that orangutans are very smart, learn quickly and do not show aggression even as adults, they are taught all sorts of tricks, grimaces and even bad habits.
Orangutan
The orangutan is a member of a very ancient subfamily of great apes. 600 - 700 thousand years ago, the distant ancestors of modern orangutans were found in abundance in the forests of Southeast Asia and the islands of the Sunda archipelago. At that time, orangs were much larger than modern ones and were not inferior in size to Gigantopithecus. In one of the Nyah caves ( Southeast Asia) signs have been found that Paleolithic Pithecanthropus people kept orangutans as pets. Obviously, these huge primates had a fairly docile character if they could live among people - after all, then there could be no iron cages. There is no doubt that people then knew these monkeys well and knew how to handle them. It has been suggested that "domestic orangutans" were used by humans as food supplies, like giant sloths in South America.
An elderly orangutan from the island. Borneo
Orangutan.
Currently, orangutans have survived only in the south of Malaysia and on the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan (Borneo), where they hide in the most remote corners of the jungle. Their total number at the end of the 70s of the twentieth century was only a few thousand individuals.
Young orangutan from the island. Sumatra
But there are fewer and fewer such corners every year. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, the demand for Palm oil and the jungle, the habitat of orangutans, is being cut down at great speed for palm plantations.
In 2003-2006, in Borneo, for example, almost 80% of forests were bulldozed - the last refuges of many unique animals, including orangutans. Currently, special centers have been created in Malaysia and on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra to work on the conservation of these monkeys. They collect the orphaned cubs of these monkeys and for 2 years teach the babies to live in the forest, after which they release them onto forested islands, but soon there will be nowhere to release them.
In these two centers there are 500 of these kids at a time and new orphans arrive almost every day. Local residents often keep them, and with great difficulty it is possible to persuade them to give up the baby. Sometimes, for some reason, adult monkeys are kept in captivity. For example, in the BBC film they showed such a prisoner who
Torogo was kept in a concrete pipe covered with mesh for 6 years. Why did you keep it?
Orangutans are large monkeys - the height of a male can reach one and a half meters with an arm length of more than two meters. The weight of the male reaches 300 kg. Females are much smaller. An adult orangutan is a very strong animal - it is seven times stronger than a human. It is almost impossible to catch an adult orangutan. The female protecting the cub has to be killed.
The first serious expeditions to study the behavior of orangutans in natural conditions were carried out in the mid-twentieth century by J. McKinley and Barbara Harrison. After the creation of the Centers for the Conservation of these animals, their employees obtained new unique data on the behavior of orangutans and their intelligence.
Way to travel.
Orangutans lead an arboreal lifestyle, spending most of it in the crowns of trees, where they feed, rest during the day and sleep at night, play and raise their young. They move with the help long arms and short legs with well-developed long toes. At the same time, flying from branch to branch, they move quite quickly. This method of locomotion is called brachiation. Descending to the ground in an open space, an orangutan can take several dozen awkward steps, swinging its arms wildly. But heavy, elderly males have to move mainly on the ground, since tree branches cannot support their weight (up to 300 kilograms).
The English zoologist McKinley writes: “...Suddenly a terrible sight met my eyes. A huge black orangutan walked towards me along the path. I have never seen such a giant even in the zoo. He must have weighed at least 300 pounds. It was impossible to defend against him or even escape if attacked. Hoping that he did not notice me, I slid behind the trunk of a large tree, and the terrible stories of the local residents about the old orangs living on the ground vividly stood before me. I held my breath as this monster passed me within a few feet. I let him go about forty meters before I came to my senses and decided to follow him. It was a real colossus, black as a gorilla, and its back was completely bald...
That day I didn’t feel well, but I still decided not to interrupt my observations and went into the jungle. I felt nauseous and wasn't very alert. Suddenly, I almost ran into another giant, not noticing that a large orangutan was sitting on the ground, chewing young shoots. He didn't pay any attention to me and continued chewing. Then he stood up and waddled off further. Then he climbed a mata-kuching ("cat's eye") tree strewn with fruits. He was too heavy and did not dare to step on unreliable branches: he settled comfortably in the middle of the crown and, bending the branches towards himself, broke them one by one. In half an hour, he had thus robbed the entire tree clean, leaving only broken, dangling branches. Then Ivan (short for Ivan the Terrible - that’s what McKinley called this orang) carefully descended to the ground. The days when he could easily fly from crown to crown were long gone, and now, having become heavy, he was forced to move on the ground. To my surprise, he walked forward so briskly that, no matter how much I wanted to know whether this giant would spend the night on a tree or on the ground, I was unable to follow him, and I soon lost track of him...”
Ways of eating.
Spending their entire lives in the treetops, orangutans feed there on fruits and leaves of trees and shrubs. For a long time It was believed that orangutans are pure vegetarians, but then this opinion had to be changed. Thus, in the Gupung Loeser National Park of Indonesia, two adult orangs, a male and a female, were once observed for three hours feeding on the carcass of a white-handed gibbon until they ate it completely. Orangutans are not greedy animals and, as a rule, willingly share food with members of their family and other familiar orangs. Moreover, it is interesting that an orangutan who has caught prey or caught a large edible fruit in the water is its owner and generously gives free treats to his comrades. At the same time, a queue forms up to him, and no one pushes, calmly waiting until he gets the treat. Such observations were made in rehabilitation centers for these monkeys, where during the first five to seven years of life they get used to living in terrestrial conditions and in fairly large groups. Because of this, the problem later arises of how to accustom them to their natural solitary lifestyle in the treetops.
Barbara Harrison says: “...The orangs led a solitary existence, not interfering in the lives of others and doing such basic things as feeding and building nests. From time to time, two or three animals together collected the harvest from a tree strewn with fruits, but they invariably returned to their former solitary life without the slightest regret.”
McKinley describes the feeding of orangutans as follows: “Large orangs, due to their considerable weight and arboreal lifestyle, cannot feed every day on limited area. That is why they are forced to wander alone or in small groups in search of fruit trees. Even when the Orang are concentrated in one area, as they are now, and different families meet quite often, they invariably retain their arrogant aloofness.
“...Molly, a young female, with her offspring lingered in these places, methodically picking fruits from the bubok tree. Even the pouring rain could not force her to interrupt this important activity, and I, chilled and wet, continued to watch them as the water poured down on me from the wet leaves. Suddenly I heard some animals approaching me from behind. I thought they were wild boars and didn’t pay attention to them. When the sounds were heard very close, I turned around and - Oh, horror! - they were not wild boars, but orangutans. They were led by a half-grown male, followed by a female and a teenage cub. I stood up to my full height with a grumble, they stopped - my appearance also took them by surprise. Then they climbed higher to watch me from the trees. It seemed that I had landed in the busiest place - not even a few minutes had passed when two more orangutans arrived.
All three families, not paying any attention to each other, fed on neighboring trees until dusk. It turned out that the new arrivals were my old acquaintances - a family of three monkeys. Karl was a handsome male in the prime of his life, with a rather sad long face. His pretty wife Kat was big, pot-bellied and sporting a bright red fur coat, but the main thing she was rightfully proud of was the fact that she had given birth to a wonderful little son, Kim. Kim was about a year old and, since he was nursed equally by both his mother and Karl. I had no doubt that Karl was his father. When meeting us, Karl was a little adrift (we were alone with an assistant) and peered out in disbelief from his hiding place in the crown of a tree, but Kim and Kat were very willing to show us their charm. It was a charming photographic scene - an idyllic, sunlit scene of a happy family. Kim looked out from under his mother's arm...
I ran for my camera, and Herman was furiously taking pictures. When I returned, I saw that Ket and Kim had climbed the dragontumelum (the name of the tree) and were greedily tearing at the round green fruits. Ket tore off the thick peel with her teeth and sucked out the pulp, holding the fruit between her mobile lips. When her mouth was full to capacity, she began to suck the seeds, swallowing the bitter, sweet pulp and spitting out the seeds with recklessness, unbecoming of a respectable lady...”
Construction of nests.
Living in tropical forest orangutans do not need to make dens. There is plenty of building material all around, and they make nests made of branches high in the trees to spend the night and rest. They choose a tall tree with a wide crown. Carefully examining this tree, they find branches whose location is convenient for building a nest. Then these branches are bent and hooked one behind the other so that a frame is formed in the form of a bowl, or rather saucer. Thinner branches and then larger leaves are laid on this frame. After this, the orang climbs into the nest and tosses and turns there for several minutes, crushing and straightening branches and leaves so that it is more comfortable to lie down. Having completed the final adjustment of the nest, he calms down and falls asleep. The nest turns out to be quite strong, since it can withstand the weight of such a large monkey, and even with one or two cubs. The nest is used only once.
Baby orangutans learn how to build a nest by watching
the way the mother does it. But at the Rehabilitation Center in Sumatra, some babies began to build a nest on their own, although they were orphaned in infancy and could not see their mother building a nest.
Social behavior.
Orangutans are the most peaceful and silent of the large apes. At first glance, they lead a solitary lifestyle, since most often in natural conditions they are seen alone. In fact, this turned out not to be the case. The orangutan community is a clan led by a powerful patriarch who sits apart from the restless youth.
This is what the patriarch looks like with Fr. Borneo, which from time to time fills the jungle with its roar, warning uninvited guests that the territory is occupied.
Headed by such a patriarch
clans slowly migrate
tions, moving to areas where this moment Edible fruits ripen.
Unlike other monkeys, orangutans do not move in a dense mass, but dispersedly, guided by the cries of their leader. If you do not make special observations, you get the impression that each individual behaves completely independently. With his terrifying roar, appearance and threatening behavior, the leader of the clan scares away not only competitors, but also his own females, as a result of which the main productive category of orangutans is the middle-aged male. After mating, the male usually leaves, but there are cases when the father accompanied the female with the cub, although his role remains very passive.
Important information about the life of orangutans was collected by Stanley da Silva, a former senior employee of the Sepilok Nature Reserve in Sabah (East Malaysia). He was able to observe the female Joan as she returned to the research center and gave birth to a calf.
First of all, she breathed air into the newborn's mouth, licked him, bit the umbilical cord and then hugged him to her, hiding him in her warm and soft fur. The next day she went with him into the depths of the forest, away from the people she had previously trusted. At first she fed the cub milk, then she began to put chewed leaves in his mouth, teaching him to eat plant foods.
Relationships with other animals.
Under natural conditions, orangutans have no enemies. True, there is a widespread belief among local residents that orangutans wage a brutal war with crocodiles and, on occasion, kill them by jumping on their back and breaking their backs. When meeting other monkeys, orangutans behave rather passively, usually preferring not to interact with them.
Young orangutans are playful and curious creatures, needing things to play with and an area to explore. Without both, they become depressed and, combined with limited mobility, which they are doomed to in zoos, turn into overweight phlegmatic people and die from cardiovascular diseases. They grow slowly and reach sexual maturity at the age of about ten years.
Orangutans are very clean animals, they early age They don’t get dirty where they sleep, and spend a lot of time tidying up their hair.
Here are some picturesque pictures from the life of orangutans that Barbara Harrison observed: “... Most of the time, young orangs Bill and Frank were chasing and fiddling among the branches tall tree. Bill was older and stronger, he behaved calmer and was unusually gluttonous. Frank, a desperate mischief-maker, loved to steal tidbits from under his nose, for which he sometimes received good blows. They bit each other on the neck and fingers, but without malice, without causing much harm...
A large male stood on a branch high above the ground. With one hand he held onto the branch, and with the other he pulled the branch towards him and ate the young shoots. Calm, measured movements. Of the other animal, located above, only part of the back and widely spaced legs with hair hanging down were visible. This orang stood on the branches and, holding onto the vine, picked the bark of the tree with his finger, sometimes picking it up with his teeth. The third was fidgeting in the crown, and it was his movements that gave away the whole company to us. Having saddled a branch, he swung on it, trying to reach out to some branch that attracted him... Orangs led a solitary existence, not interfering in other people's lives, and doing such essential things as feeding and building nests... At times, two or three animals together they harvested from the same tree, but without the slightest regret they invariably returned to their former solitary life. In general, adults clearly preferred to wander and feed alone, and I felt sorry for the kids - they didn’t even have anyone to play with except their tired old mother...”
Reasonable behavior.
The name “orangutan” translates as “red-haired forest man.” According to legends, an orangutan is a descendant of a man who committed some crime and, ashamed of it, ran away into the forest.
The most interesting observations indicating the high innate intelligence of orangutans were made in nature reserves and zoos. So once at the Orangutan Research Center in the Sepilok Nature Reserve in East Malaysia, monkeys were vaccinated. A particularly smart young male, Gippo, stubbornly resisted and had to be restrained by force. But immediately after the vaccination, he grabbed another resisting male and extended his hand towards the needle. It is very possible that at the same time he somehow reassured his comrade and made him understand that this was not scary at all, something like: “Don’t be afraid, everything will be fine.” In any case, his friend calmed down and allowed him to be vaccinated.
IN national park On the island of Sumatra, scientists observing these red monkeys discovered a female orangutan who, like a chimpanzee, used a “tool” - a twig, specially prepared for this purpose and peeled from the bark - to extract honey from a hollow tree. It seems that this was her personal invention, since she did not have the opportunity to learn this cultural skill.
When the question arose about relocating a group of senior pupils to another island, where they were supposed to become self-sufficient, the future settlers were offered plant species that were new to them. In particular, they brought coconuts, since they grow on the new island. coconut trees. The future settlers had never seen coconuts before and became keenly interested in them. Quite quickly, some of them realized that they couldn’t bite through the new fruit with their teeth. Someone tried to break the shell by hitting it with a stick, and someone realized that they could break it by hitting a tree trunk with a nut. The rest of the orangutans gathered around and watched with interest what was happening. Soon many of the teenagers
Until recently, it was believed that orangutans could not swim and therefore were terribly afraid of water.
Observations at the Center for the Rehabilitation of Baby Orangutans Left Without Mothers on the island of Borneo showed that this is so. In the film, shot by the Center's staff, some young teenagers living on an island in the middle of the river enter the water and retrieve floating objects with branches. At the same time, they hold the body vertically. They walk independently in water where the depth reaches their waist. Moreover, some of them, before taking the next step, check the depth with a stick, holding it in a vertical position. And the seven-year-old teenager Hamlet, the leader of a group of kids on this island, decided to see what was happening on the neighboring island, where older teenagers lived. To do this, he first moved there through the channel. He crossed in a rather complicated way. At first, he carefully moved away from his shore, checking the depth with a stick. When there were three meters left to the other shore, the water reached almost to the neck. He was afraid to go further. But then he remembered that he had watched people swim more than once, and after some hesitation I dared to try. He threw his stick forward and, grabbing it, made several strokes with his free hand and grabbed the branch. After staying on this island for several days, he realized that it was better to be the leader of the kids than a subordinate on this island, he set off on the way back. But during these days, after the rains, the water in the river rose, and the flow in the channel intensified. After several attempts to wade across, he became convinced that this was impossible, and he did not dare to swim in such a current. Then he tried to wade, holding in his hands a rather thick log almost five meters long (later two people could not even lift this log from the water). After several attempts, he finally set it upright, but was unable to cope with the current and dropped it.
After thinking again, he decided to rest it on the opposite bank. When he managed to do this, he threw himself into the water and, moving his hands along the trunk, managed to reach his shore. It was a risky business, since the log was already drifting away from the shore.
While Hamlet was mastering the crossing of the channel, many teenagers were delightedly having fun, swimming in a deep puddle. They splashed in it, tumbled in the water, dived into the water, running from the shore, or plopped into it from a branch hanging over the water.
Returning to his island, Hamlet heard the sound of the engine of an approaching boat, on which milk and bananas were brought to them. He immediately hurried to the flooring on which the brought food was laid out, and began hastily clearing it of all the garbage that had accumulated there over the past days, as people had done before.
Here's what happened at the New York Zoo: One day, keepers discovered that a large orang, kept without a cage in an open enclosure on an island in the middle of a pond, had suddenly disappeared. The enclosure was separated from the rest of the zoo by a wide strip of water. Orangs are known to be afraid of water and cannot swim. Imagine the surprise of the employees when they discovered the fugitive who was sitting on big tree in the park. It turns out he somehow got there. The orang was old, almost tame, and without much objection, he went by boat, accompanied by his servant, to the island, to his rightful enclosure.
But the next day he was not there again, and again he was found in a tree in the park. We decided to monitor him and find out how this monkey, who cannot swim, gets from the island to the shore. What did it turn out to be? Having received his usual portion of bananas in the evening, the orang left a few fruits and hid them between the stones. After that, he calmly went to bed. At dawn he got up, took out the hidden bananas, went ashore with them and began waving them. To the surprise of the attendant, a huge elk emerged from the depths of the park (in modern zoos many animals live free), entered the water and swam towards the orang. When the elk came out of the water, the orang fed it bananas, and then climbed onto its back, and the elk and its rider set off on their way back.
One of the tests to assess the mental abilities of an animal is a mirror. Most animals either do not pay attention to the shiny toy, or, seeing their image in it, take it for a representative of their species and sometimes start a fight with it. Some people look behind the mirror, assuming that the animal seen in it is hiding there. And only two species of animals are able to recognize themselves in the mirror - chimpanzees and orangutans.
Attitude towards a person.
We have already seen that orangutans are neutral towards a person who behaves calmly. But a female protecting her cub is so dangerous that in almost all cases of catching cubs, she has to be killed.
In legends, the orang is often accused of sexually assaulting people. The most common fable: A large orang kidnapped a girl and took her to the top of a huge tree, where he had a nest. He keeps her there, feeding her fruit. Over time, the woman gives birth to a child - half human - half monkey.
Finally, during the absence of the orang, the woman manages to escape from the nest by climbing down a vine or rope, which she has woven in advance from the fibers of a coconut palm. She runs through the forest, clutching her child, and the orang rushes after her, swinging on the branches and flying from tree to tree. At the last moment, she runs out to the river (or lake), where she sees a boat with people. Orang is already very close, but the people in the boat are shouting for her to leave the child and swim to them. So she does. While the orang is raising the child, the woman manages to swim to the boat and is saved. Seeing that his unfaithful wife is out of reach, the orang becomes furious and tears the child into pieces and throws his head towards the boat...
They say that the sad cry of an orangutan is the cry of a “forest man” for lost opportunities. In general, this is the most silent of the apes. Even during a fight, they push and grab each other with their long arms silently. The exception is babies, who, when driven away, or cause them pain, making a sound between a squeak and a squeal.
When a young orang wants to attract the attention of another orang, not necessarily a female, he begins to somersault, swing on branches, demonstrating various acrobatic exercises - sometimes swinging, holding his hands, sometimes upside down, etc. And one of them won his sympathy by the fact that he knew how to fall flat on his back: fell - jumped up, fell - jumped up, and so on several times.
How much stronger is a monkey than a human, what kind of force are gorillas capable of developing, what are primates capable of. Many people have asked these questions. Here is a translation of one article on this topic. One of the famous primatologists answers the questions.
Expert: Fady D. Isho - 7/27/2008
QUESTION: You recently answered a question about the strength of great apes and stated that a male chimpanzee is on average 5 times stronger than an adult male, and a male orangutan or gorilla is up to 10 times stronger, etc.
My question is: How was this force measured? As an athlete, this is very interesting to me. Was one-arm pull strength, arm strength, and grip strength measured, all together—or something else? Was some other device used?
I ask these questions because I know some very strong people, and it is unlikely that the legs of a primate are stronger than the legs of some of these fellows (they leg press weights of over 2000 pounds). And it's kind of hard to believe that a 120-pound chimpanzee could have the strength of 5 men on the bench press, for example. The world record bench press is roughly 800 pounds, which means a 120 pound chimpanzee would be able to bench press 4,000 pounds (which is close to 2 tons, or 33 1/3 times its body weight). This seems unlikely.
Even if we compare with average men with an average level of training. Many of them can bench press at least their own weight, but it's a pushing motion, not a pulling motion, which I suspect primates are monstrously strong at.
However, even if compared to the average athlete, that means a 120 lb chimpanzee would have to bench press 600 lbs since he is 5 times stronger than a human.
That's why I ask how this difference in strength was measured and determined.
Thank you in advance for any answer you may have.
ANSWER: Hi Jim
I understand your curiosity, let me explain. Many people have no idea about power (or power). From a scientific point of view, it can be measured as work per time (work done per unit of time; power = work/time).
For example, if a person moves a 200-pound load a certain distance in twenty seconds, and a chimpanzee does it in four seconds, we can assume that the chimpanzee is five times more powerful than a person in this task.
Let me point out that today there is no universal way to compare a person with an adult chimpanzee, orangutan, or gorilla. An experiment conducted at the Bronx Zoo in 1924 compared the strength of a 165-pound adult human and a 165-pound male chimpanzee named “Boma,” as well as a 135-pound female chimpanzee, Suzette.
They competed to see how much weight a man and a monkey could pull with one hand. A grown man managed to pull a maximum of 200 pounds. The male chimpanzee, in turn, pulled 847 pounds with one hand, and the female chimpanzee 1,260 pounds.
You see that our brothers, the smaller monkeys, can easily do the same strong man like a hot water bottle. At one of the exhibitions, an orangutan threw his hand at a log that was in his way, with which four or five people had previously struggled in vain, trying to move it.
In terms of animal strength, the strength of a wild chimpanzee is equivalent to the strength of 4 to 7 adult men, more like 5 adult men.
The strength of an orangutan is equal to that of 5 - 8 adult males, approximately 7 adult males.
A gorilla has the strength of 9 to 12 adult men, that is approximately 11.
These estimates are made based on actual actions performed by these animals. If you knew monkeys as well as I do, I am sure you would not doubt their capabilities.
Best wishes,
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QUESTION: Dear Fady D. Isho,
Thank you for the information, very interesting and valuable!
Yes, I'm familiar with the difference between power and strength. Force is basically a measure of short-term force that can be applied or exerted on an object - while power is more the amount of force that can be developed by transferring weight over a distance or in some other way in a unit of time.
However, the comparison in traction you refer to (this does not imply that I doubt what you say) appears to violate the laws of physics. For a 135 pound body to pull 9 times its own weight, there must be some constant base of leverage to pull the weight rather than push towards it.
Considering that the friction of the surface on which the chimpanzee's body is located and the weight are the same - it is physically impossible for a chimpanzee to move the weight (a monkey would rather pull itself towards the weight) - unless there is some fixed base, leaning against which the chimpanzee could place itself against the force of tension .
It's the same with pushing. The old Superman comic broke the laws of physics when a 200 (+/-) pound man stopped or pushed a multi-ton truck while on the same frictionless surface (asphalt). The laws of physics are completely ignored here.
That's why it's hard to believe that a chimpanzee is able to pull more than its own weight across a surface with equal friction between both masses. Is it possible (from personal experience), if a person has the opportunity to fix his position with the help of a strong stationary support, a tree, a rock, or railroad sleepers, from which he can push off.
The best example of this is how a 250 pound man pulls a locomotive. He can do this only because there is a difference in friction (a locomotive is on wheels, a person can use sleepers as a fixed support). Once the inertia is overcome, the locomotive, weighing many times more than a person, begins to move. A person only needs to overcome inertia to get him off the ground.
In general, it would be interesting to know what was used as a base in primate strength tests. Or it was simply the strength of the hand, grip, and traction that were measured.
Another related question arises. Monkeys can use both arms and legs to move, like four-legged animals. This gives them every pound of advantage over humans. Isn’t this what gives them the main advantages, since they can use a greater number of muscles in an effort, which in cross section will be larger than those of a person.
Another important possibility should be considered: Adrenaline (aka the “anger” or “extreme” factor). This is what allows a 110 pound woman to lift a car while saving her son (documented case).
Therefore, please explain, maybe some kind of irritant was used to outrage and anger the animal to stimulate the adrenaline factor? In other words, was some kind of stimulus used? After all, the person, naturally, did not have such an advantage that could affect the test result.
Thank you very much! Waiting for an answer.
Answer
Hello Jim
The male chimpanzee stood with his feet on the base, the female did not.
All your statements are correct. Without support from a stationary object or a surface with a higher coefficient of friction, the body under test will simply slide towards the load. But when there is more than enough force to move an object, the object begins to move along the direction of the force. (Through a jerk).
And since chimpanzees' bones are denser than humans', and their muscles are more developed, they are able to move heavier weights.
There have also been reports of felines testing the strength of pulling loads more than five times their body weight, just as chimpanzees are able to do this effectively.
The monkey makes a sumo wrestler like a hot water bottle. Interesting video, a sumo wrestler competes with an orangutan in a tug of war. Can you imagine what would happen if it was a gorilla?