Zoo Life Boosts Object Exploration: Wild and Zoo-Housed Orangutans Explore the World Differently

Описание: Our new study comparing wild and zoo-housed Sumatran orangutans reveals that life in a zoo significantly alters how orangutans interact with their environment. We analyzed over 12,000 instances of daily exploratory object manipulation (EOM)—the active manipulation and visual inspection of objects associated with learning and problem-solving—across 51 orangutans of all ages. The findings show that orangutans living in zoos engage in more frequent, more diverse, and more complex exploration than their wild counterparts.
Our study shows that orangutans in zoos not only explore more, but they also explore differently. What’s especially fascinating is that even when exploring the same kinds of objects, zoo-housed orangutans showed a richer repertoire of actions and were more likely to use tools or manipulate multiple objects at the same time.
Importantly, the age at which orangutans first engaged in specific types of exploration was consistent across both settings, suggesting an inborn developmental sequence. However, zoo orangutans continued to explore into adulthood, while wild individuals’ EOM declined sharply around weaning age— likely due to the demands of survival in the wild, where foraging and constant vigilance leave little time for exploration.
In human infants, object exploration enables learning about physical properties such as texture and weight while stimulating cognitive and motor development—a pattern observed in many non-human animals as well. The heightened exploration may enhance cognitive flexibility and problem-solving skills in zoo-housed orangutans, as they interact with varied enrichment items and have more time and energy to devote to learning through exploration.
These findings underscore how profoundly the environment influences animal behavior and cognitive development. And it also offers unique opportunities—by comparing wild and zoo-housed animals, we can better understand the full extent of a species’ cognitive potential.

A huge thank you to everybody involved in this study 🦧❤️!

The Paper is published in Scientific Reports:
Laumer IB, Kansal S, van Cauwenberghe A, Rahmaeti T, Mitra Setia T, Mundry R, Haun D, Schuppli C (2025) Wild and zoo-housed orangutans differ in how they explore objects. Scientific Reports, 10.1038/s41598-025-97926-z.
https://rdcu.be/ej4hQ