Orangutans eat baby meat

One scientist saw two orangutan chicks in Indonesia. People have never witnessed this behavior in any primates.

An orangutan and its baby in Indonesia.Photo: laurensia.net.

Scientists have long believed that humans are the only species to eat primates - our relatives. Some experts believe that chimpanzees also eat cannibalism, but no one has seen it in practice. 'Before two Indonesian carnivores were discovered, people never saw the orangutans eating their children,' said David Dellatore, a lecturer at Oxford Brookes University (UK).

Dellatore and an assistant began tracking the orangutan at Bukit Lawang forest on Sumatra island, Indonesia. At first he just wanted to find out the health status of orangutans who had been caught by humans before returning to the wild environment. But then Dellatore noticed many tourists playing with them. Even more people throw food for orangutans and touch them, despite the Indonesian government's ban. So he came up with the intention to follow some children from morning to night to monitor their behavior. Then one day he saw the female orangutan named Edita eating her baby.

'Initially, the assistant and I did not believe in the scene we saw, but Edita actually ate me. For over 40 years of primates I have never seen it before , ' Dellatore said. . A month later Dellatore again saw the same behavior, but happened to the orangutan named Ratna. His son also died a few days before being eaten. The creepy level of the second time is much better than the last time. He promptly recorded this scene.

Dellatore did not know why the orangutan did so, because in terms of evolution, the orangutans did not benefit from eating the meat. "In the natural environment, orangutans and other primates often carry their bodies. Eating meat can be a way of expressing mourning ," he said.

In fact, Edita, the 23-year-old orangutan, brought and protected her body for 7 days. Every day he examined corpses several times and cried bitterly. Edita started eating baby meat from the eighth day, when the body smelled badly. Meanwhile, Ratna's 7-month-old child was ill several days before he died. Dellatore surmised that the hardship of raising children gave rise to carnivorous behavior in mother orangutans.

'Most semi-wild orangutans have witnessed a heartbreaking scene, like their mother's death. Poachers often catch orangutans when they are only a few months old. The orangutan mother never left her child, so she was often killed. Therefore, when living in an environment to keep young orangutans falling into isolation. Many previous studies have shown that lonely live animals often have many cognitive problems during adulthood. It is possible that the act of eating meat is one of those problems , 'argued Dellatore.