Male Orangutans Can Make Travel Plans, Study Finds

Male Orangutans have a reputation for being solitary creatures; they travel alone and emit calls to keep their rivals away. Now, a new study shows that these gigantic apes can plan their trips and their calls are actually a way of telling females where they are going.

The study shows that even apes can make future plans- an ability that requires both higher intelligence and self-control. Researchers also found that these apes can announce their travel plans a day in advance and even make corrections in their calls to inform others of the change in travel route.

Orangutans make howling calls as they move from one place to another. Their calls in the wild known as "long calls" can be heard from as far as 1.2 miles, according to the National Geographic.

Females generally move towards the male orangutans making long calls while male orangutans belonging to a lower rank move away from these calls. These apes have cheek pads that act as a funnel and amplify sounds.

The present study was conducted by researchers at the University of Zurich who studied orangutan behavior in the tropical forest of Sumatra.

Data for the study was collected over a period of five years. Researchers found that long calls made during evenings told female orangutans about the males' travel plans for the next day. Day-time long calls were also linked with the apes' direction.

"Our study makes it clear that wild orangutans do not simply live in the here and now, but can imagine a future and even announce their plans. In this sense, then, they have become a bit more like us," Carel van Schaik, one of the study authors, said in a news release

The study is published in the journal PLoS ONE.