The staff studied orangutans at a long-term monitoring website, Suaq Balimbing, in Sumatra. Orangutans on the website have been habituated over a long time to the presence of people, thus providing scientists a uncommon alternative to look at wild nice apes at shut vary. Caroline Schuppli, director of the Suaq Undertaking and the research’s first creator, grew to become fascinated about how wild orangutans would react when offered with one thing unfamiliar.

“Curiosity is a trait that has pushed the distinctive means of people to study and innovate,” says Schuppli, a gaggle chief at MPI-AB. “If we need to understand how the trait advanced in us, we’ve to review it in our closest dwelling kinfolk.”

Curiosity, which describes a person’s motivation to study in regards to the unknown, has been studied earlier than in nice apes; nonetheless, as a result of logistical difficulties of finding out wild animals, nearly all exams have occurred in captivity. “We all know that apes are very curious to discover when they’re within the secure and managed circumstances of a zoo,” says Schuppli. “However these outcomes inform us little about what actually triggered or suppressed curiosity over our evolutionary historical past.”

About ten years in the past, Schuppli and collaborators first tried to evaluate curiosity in wild orangutans with an experiment impressed by captive research. They roamed Suaq, peppering the forest with overseas objects for the orangutans to seek out: a vibrant purple flag; plastic flowers and fruits; a stuffed toy. The outcomes had been stark. “They rarely got here close to any of the gadgets,” she remembers. “You may see them making large circles within the forest to keep away from the experiment.”

Schuppli realized that testing orangutans’ response to novelty in nature would require reimagining the previous paradigm. “The problem was determining find out how to entice them with one thing that was novel, but in addition acquainted sufficient to not scare them off,” she says. Over time Schuppli perfected simply such an object: a bit of tree trunk with a pure gap full of native forest honey. The tree gap and meals had been acquainted, however deploying these in an uncommon method represented a novel foraging scenario. With a staff of native and worldwide scientists, Schuppli hoisted the experimental log into timber about 10 meters from orangutans — and watched what occurred.

In the course of the trials, the orangutans spent on common half-hour within the neighborhood of the novel log. Throughout this time, they explored the novel log by intensively observing it over prolonged intervals of time and approaching it carefully. General, nonetheless, orangutans not often touched the department immediately; and after they did, they usually used a software, similar to a stick to take action. “The orangutans had been fairly cautious,” says Tri Rahmaeti, a staff member from Universitas Nasional in Indonesia and co-author on the research. “The honey reward might have simply been scooped out of the log utilizing a finger, however they nonetheless most well-liked to make use of a software so that they did not need to make bodily contact.”

However there have been important variations within the behaviors. Utilizing statistical strategies, the staff uncovered traits of people and options within the setting that amplified exploration. Younger orangutans had been way more probably than adults to look at and method. And, orangutans had been extra more likely to method the log in the event that they noticed one other particular person heading that method too. The habitat additionally appeared to play a job: in areas with plentiful meals, orangutans noticed extra however approached much less.

Says Schuppli: “On the one hand, the outcomes confirmed our hunch that orangutans within the wild will not be that eager to discover new objects. This could possibly be as a result of in nature, orangutans stay very lengthy lives in secure habitats the place novelty is uncommon. So, the potential danger of approaching one thing unknown does not outweigh the potential reward.”

“Alternatively, the experiment confirmed that there’s flexibility within the conduct. Orangutans have the potential to be inquisitive about novelty in nature, however solely beneath sure circumstances. And by experimentally testing this in a wild inhabitants, we pinned down the circumstances.”

Of those circumstances, Schuppli finds the social issue most illuminating. “Orangutans are the least social of all nice apes, and but we discover that the presence of affiliation companions will increase their curiosity,” she says.

This has fascinating implications for understanding studying and innovation — the merchandise of curiosity that fueled the success of our species. “We frequently consider studying and innovation as solo acts, however this may not have been the case in our early historical past,” says Schuppli. “If novelty was the spark, then our social lives might need offered the accelerant.”