No Monkey Business, These Apes Plan Ahead

They don’t bring along an umbrella or sunglasses that might be needed later, but researchers say that apes, like people, can plan ahead.

Orangutans and bonobos were able to figure out which tool would work to retrieve grapes, and they were able to remember to bring that tool along hours later, researchers reported in the current issue of the journal Science.

The researchers said they selected bonobos because they were the closest relatives of humans among the great apes, and orangutans because they were the most distant.

In a series of laboratory tests, the apes were shown the tools and grapes, allowed to retrieve grapes and then removed from the area where the treats were available. The apes were allowed back into the area from one to 14 hours later, and most were able to bring along the correct tool to get the treats, reported Nicholas J. Mulcahy and Josep Call of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

The researchers said the finding suggested that planning ahead arose at least 14 million years ago, when the last common ancestor of bonobos, orangutans and humans lived.

While the findings do not necessarily imply that apes are able to anticipate a future state of mind, they are nonetheless groundbreaking, Thomas Suddendorf of the University of Queensland in Australia said in a commentary in the journal.

“By identifying what capacities our closest living relatives share with us, we can get a glimpse at our evolutionary past,” said Suddendorf, an associate professor of psychology.