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Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#81

Post by below43 »

_yb2s wrote: post #72
andoando wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine too. Just munches on grass on every walk, never seen her throw up. I think she just likes it.

I think humans have a hard time understanding animal behavior, and consistently underestimate their intelligence because we don’t understand or relate to their motivations and interests. We take our values and motivations as objective facts, and don’t even consider that maybe dogs enjoy eating grass, and also aren’t that interested in the weird sounds humans like to make with their mouths.

Not sure about the latter statement. Our dog is very interested in any keyword verbalised by us that may relate to receiving food or a walk or a ride in the car (from pretty much any corner of the house). She appears to be permanently listening to every sound we make.

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#82

Post by PlunderBunny »

tombert wrote: post #8
datadeft wrote: post #5

Even the animals know that plants are medicine. Such a wierd thing that lebel these as alternative.

I don't think people label plants as inherently alternative medicine. Plenty of non-alternative (aka regular) medicine was originally derived from plants (e.g. aspirin). Things typically become labeled "medicine" when they've been work and have been tested. "Alternative" kind of works like a logical `not`, so applying de Morgan's law that implies that alternative medicine either has not been tested or doesn't work. O…

My first thought on reading this was of Tim Minchin's epic beat poem 'Storm' [0] - jump to 3:05 if you want to hear the bit that specifically deals with this.

(Warning: some language NSFW)

[0] https://youtu.be/HhGuXCuDb1U?si=zDhsb_llkkzbMEiB

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#83

Post by beretguy »

NoPicklez wrote: post #51
anigbrowl wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a school of thought that says a lot of thinking happens in the gut, which delegates tasks to the brain, so to speak.

My gut instinctively knows I need chocolate right after eating dinner

My gut instinctively knows I need chocolate and then not eat dinner

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#84

Post by dylan604 »

scotty79 wrote: post #65
NoPicklez wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My gut instinctively knows I need chocolate right after eating dinner

I have this after eating a bare steak. I think there's something about eating a lot of something that does not contain carbs that immediately turns on craving for sugar.

I say this after eating a tomato sauce. Of all foods to cause a craving for a follow up, tomato sauces are the top. Next up is smoked meat (bbq) makes me want banana pudding, but I think that's a trained habit vs a craving like tomato sauces.

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#85

Post by gonzo41 »

eellpp wrote: post #77
balls187 wrote: post #73

Many years ago I stopped by a zoo in France, with my 7mo son. I was pushing him in the stroller while he was napping, and at the orangutan exhibit, one came up to the window and gestured towards the stroller. I turned the stroller to face the window, and removed the hood. The orangutan blew my son a kiss, waved then went back to the otherside of its enclosure. Made me rethink what I knew about animal intelligence.

After reading this, the choice of word "exhibit" hurts

Animal prison.

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#86

Post by hnick »

Intralexical wrote: post #57
hnick wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd considered the dog eating grass thing as more of a now-disputed myth, but maybe someone has evidence. Either way my own dog loves munching on the taller/thicker grass every time we walk, like he's a sheep. His favourite foods also include broccoli and bok choy so that could be why. I think a lot of people downplay the role plants play in a dog's diet (not required but helpful especially with processed diets that…

You should get a sheepdog dog to herd your sheep-dog.

Hah we actually did... the younger border collie also does it, but less. Maybe he's copying his brother from another mother.

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#87

Post by hnick »

datavirtue wrote: post #55
hnick wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd considered the dog eating grass thing as more of a now-disputed myth, but maybe someone has evidence. Either way my own dog loves munching on the taller/thicker grass every time we walk, like he's a sheep. His favourite foods also include broccoli and bok choy so that could be why. I think a lot of people downplay the role plants play in a dog's diet (not required but helpful especially with processed diets that…

My dog loves Bell peppers. She will eat any piece that hits the ground, quite greedily.

We minded a labrador once (notorious appetites), he'd eat capsicums, and on the neighbourhood walks would even go for raw green olives that fell from trees onto the paths. I'm pretty sure they are very bitter which sensible animals interpret as poison but not he. So we had to steer away from those during that season.

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#88

Post by hnick »

retrac wrote: post #74
_yb2s wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had half a dozen dogs, and every single one of them ate grass every chance they could get- in large quantities. I also don't think it has anything to do with having an upset stomach. Dogs seem to really enjoy grass, and make it a regular part of their diet... I know they likely can't extract any calories from it, but it may have other benefits.

There is nutrition in grass which is available to mammals like dogs (and humans). They are mostly cellulose, but plants use carbohydrates and proteins for their own structure and metabolism, and these are present in all plants in at least small amounts. Roots, shoots and fleshy stalks, are better than the leaves. Like an unpleasant, less nutritious lettuce or celery with too much fibre. Those are also hard to get mea…

The cellulose aka fibre is useful for them too, for the same reason as us, even if there are not many calories or other nutrients available. Dry food, bones, high protein diets can all benefit from a bit of bulk.

I've been told that wild dogs and wolves eat the digestive contents of herbivores which is semi-digested (free range haggis!), which definitely seems true to me given how much both of mine go for rabbit/sheep droppings. This supposedly supplies some more available vegetative nutrients to them. But this came from a pet nutritionist, I'm not sure how strict or scientific their training is.

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#89

Post by dudinax »

observationist wrote: post #50
RenThraysk wrote: post #25

It's interesting for sure, but the mystery is how he gained that knowledge. Is he just repeating what he's seen humans do or his ancestors?

More than likely the plant has a noticeable topical anesthetic effect - Orangutans don't have an explicit mechanism for passing abstract knowledge so the phenomena has to be explained subjectively. It might be a particular cooling effect, or something recognizable about the plant that it contrasted against an injury for which it didn't use the plant. Or it observed another ape that did have such a subjective effect a…

Orangutans (probably) can't pass on "this will help you heal", but they might be able to pass on "Put this on a wound."

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#90

Post by borski »

codethief wrote: post #40
mattlondon wrote: post #3

It would be nice if they could work out what this "medicinal" tree is and start mass-producing this paste because that looks like some serious healing going on there! ... or perhaps orangutans are just way better at this sort of thing that human are? I recently tripped up running and had a much smaller cut (compared to the apparent missing-chunk-of-flesh this orangutan had) on my knee that took several weeks to fully…

> on my knee Wounds on/near joints are known to heal much more slowly because of the added movement-induced stress. In contrast, facial wounds heal particularly fast¹. For instance, I had a bike accident last September, which resulted in a small wound on my knee and several bigger, more severe injuries in my face. (I basically did a face plant.) The facial injuries healed within 2 weeks. Meanwhile, to this day people…

hehe... face... plant...

(sorry)

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