If you've been to a zoo, you may have heard an orangutan shouting at his exhibit-mates. As it happens, some of those shouts could have been plans for the future.
The night before they intend to move, male orangutans face in the direction they want to take and make "long calls," according to anthropologists at the University of Zurich. Those calls ward off rival males, attract potential mates, and let any followers in on the route, too. What's most interesting to researchers, though, is the timing of the calls. They're made a day in advance, meaning orangutans think about the future, an ability once thought to be exclusively human.
"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," Dr. Carel van Schaik, one of the university anthropologists, told ScienceDaily. "In this sense, then, they have become a bit more like us."
The researchers looked at wild and captive orangutans and observed the same behavior in both. Orangutans also at times changed direction and announced the new itinerary with a long call down the new path.
The University of Zurich team's study was published in the Public Library of Science.