Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 165 posts

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#151

Post by balls187 »

ljsprague wrote: post #144
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.

Was it Nénette? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%A9nette

No. This was at zoo du Bassin d’Arcachon

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#152

Post by balls187 »

penguin_booze wrote: post #113
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.

> The orangutan blew my son a kiss Excuse being the kill joy: the fellow might be mimicking a gesture it learned from other visitors. That's not to say they don't have an inner life--we're all made of the same substrate, after all.

It wasn’t so much the kiss; but the full interaction—it came up to me and wanted to see my son who was covered up in his stroller and not facing the enclosure, then it was seemingly satisfied with my reaction, and left.

Of course my dog will whine for food, or smack it’s water dish with her nose, but this felt much different akin to similar experiences I’ve had with strangers who smile and comment about how adorable my son was as an infant.

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#153

Post by abathur »

barrenko wrote: post #147
abathur wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to ponder this for a minute :) I picked up dark chocolate as a snack in early 2020, which I chose very specifically to avoid carbs. I also use cocoa powder to make low-carb ice cream for the same reason. I guess I've used it this way for long enough now that I've broken my default association between chocolate and sugar.

Damn, now I absolutely need dark chocolate.

I like this one: https://chocolatebar.com/products/extreme-dark-88-dark-choco...

I'm a little bitter-sensitive, and it's the most-pleasant 88%+ I've had so far.

Still inevitably some carbs in cocoa, so you can do some carb-budget damage if you eat more than a serving--but I feel like it's a good treat for its weight.

They call a serving size 1/3 of the bar, with 11g carbs (4g fiber, 3g sugar). I think the bar is 3x5 squares, and I generally just have one at a time. Not sure I've had more than 3 squares in a day.

I think that would be around 7g total carbs, a bit under 2g sugar, and about 2.4g fiber (i.e. around 4.6g net carbs.)

(edit: i've seen them at cvs and target, at least--though my nearest cvs no longer carries the brand)

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#154

Post by mehulashah »

grecy wrote: post #143
mehulashah wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are magnificent creatures. There is so much more left for us to learn about them and us. Phenomenal.

Out of interest, do you call other humans "creatures" ? I find out use of wording interesting, and it helps justify putting them in cages and doing experiments on them.

No I don’t, and it wasn’t intended that way. It was the opposite— they’re magnificent. They’re clearly not of our species. That does not mean they should be caged.

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#155

Post by saurik »

mc32 wrote: post #139
MailleQuiMaille wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are saying that it might have learn by trial and error to use appropriate social signs directed to the appropriate social settings…? And that differs from us how exactly ?

It’s akin to cargo culting, or rain dancing, etc. A dog asking for beggin strips…

The concept of cargo culting came from a situation with humans; while a dog might also do it, it doesn't make sense to cite it as a reason why a behavior is somehow inhuman.

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#156

Post by mharig »

shiroiushi wrote: post #95
hnick wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/shee…

Pet dogs that live with cats are well-known to eat cat turds out of the litterbox.

The only thing dogs like more than cat feces is human feces. I assume that is deeply breeded-in. If you are a group of 50-100 nomadic hunter(-gatherer)s, you will appreciate not so much smelling surroundings.

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#157

Post by codethief »

wil421 wrote: post #38
darth_avocado wrote: post #28

Obviously orangutans are much smarter as a species, they are know to pass down knowledge/behaviors, including tool usage, down generations. But there could be more to this behavior. A dog instinctively knows to eat grass when they have stomach issues and Alaskan Bears eat certain plants to expel parasites after hibernation. How do they know? Zoopharmacognosy is a fascinating subject that needs more research. https://…

When my wife was pregnant the doc said to let them know if she had any cravings for minerals, clay, or something weird like that. Turns out it can mean a vitamin deficiency. Not sure how the mind knows to send out a specific craving besides food and water.

Apparently this is called geophagia, see this comment further down: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40242839

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#158

Post by bamboozled »

ornornor wrote: post #112
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.

The way we treat animals is terrifying as they’re likely much much more sentient than we make ourselves believe (mostly for our own convenience)

I think we know, we just pretend they’re not so we don’t feel bad about being complete assholes.

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#159

Post by RoyalHenOil »

andoando wrote: post #69
_yb2s wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is true- every dog I've had eats grass frequently and it doesn't usually cause them to throw up. Also- dogs can throw up on demand at any time, they don't need anything like grass to help them. This is because it is the natural way that female dogs bring home food for puppies, they vomit up the food to share it with them. I'm pretty sure dogs sometimes vomit on purpose with the explicit goal of sha…

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

She probably does. Wolves in the wild eat the undigested stomach contents of their herbivorous prey. This food source is missing from modern dog food, so domestic dogs make up for it by eating plants directly.

Re: Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant

#160

Post by RoyalHenOil »

sevagh wrote: post #126
gwbas1c wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a casual message board; there's no requirement to put that kind of effort into a post here. You can also do the legwork yourself.

>You can also do the legwork yourself. The person who makes the claim must justify it, not the readers.

>My uninformed opinion is that anything which hasn't been distilled into a single compound won't be called medicine by the medical industry.

So are you going to insist on the same for the original claim made here, too, or is this an isolated demand for rigor?

Post reply on HN