Vegan to Omnivore (Cultural Leap)

MelsAuntie
MelsAuntie Posts: 2,833 Member
in Food and Nutrition
June 24, 2013 5:44 pm

Here's something to think about. Gorillas eat insects and ants. Chimpanzees --males only--actively hunt colobus monkeys, kill them, share the meat. If they can't catch a monkey and are all worked up, they have been known to kill and eat a baby chimpanzee. Orangutans are almost solely herbivores ... and yet....
There's a population of orangs living on an island . They were all rescues friom the pet/captive trade, mostly rescued as infants, and all together in an unrelated group, where they work out their own relationships. They are used to humans bringing them food. During the flood, wild orangs retreat to the treetops and stay there eating leaves until the water goes down. This population, instead, stayed on the platforms jjust above water level waiting for food delivery. As the water got low, one female saw a catfish flopping in the mud, caught it, tried a bite...holy cow, this is a great change from an all-veggie diet! All of them started catching and eating catfish. Then one of them thought to spear a catfish with a sharp stick. HUGE CULTURAL LEAP! I've seen a photo of one of these orangs, hanging over the floodwaters by one arm and both feet, with a long sharp stick in its hand, staring into the water, ready to stab a catfish as soon as it got a chance. The animal behaviorists watching this population were peeing their pants with excitement.
This group of orangutans is evolving to eat meat.

Replies

  • Carnivor0us
    Carnivor0us Posts: 1,752 Member
    I think the most significant part of this is the fact they're using *tools* to hunt, not that they're hunting....
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,222 Member
    Weird things happen on Islands........:happy:
  • suv_hater
    suv_hater Posts: 374 Member
    That is awesome!. Do you know any more cool stories?
  • MelsAuntie
    MelsAuntie Posts: 2,833 Member
    That is awesome!. Do you know any more cool stories?



    Oh yeah, I do.
  • MelsAuntie
    MelsAuntie Posts: 2,833 Member
    Another cultural leap...
    It's late, I'm exhausted, and not going to google this now to find out WHICH zoo, but I read this years back in, I think, Audubon magazine.
    There is a public zoo which ha a population of green herons, a small short-legged native heron, we see them along our river. These birds did not belong to the zoo; they flew in on their own and stayed because of the fish in the ponds. People would buy popcorn and throw it to the peafowl, ducks, and the fish. One green heron noticed that when people threw popcorn in the water, fish came to the surface. It started following the visitors around, and when somebody threw popcorn to the fish, the heron would wade out, wait until the fish came to the surface, and with the unerring aim and blinding speed of its kind, Bam. Fish dinner.
    At one point this bird made a stunning cognitive leap; if humans could throw popcorn in the water, so could the heron. It would swoop down and grab the popcorn thrown to peafowl, for instance, then wade stealthily out into the water and carefully let the popcorn float. Aha! No more stalking and waiting. Popcorn in the water = fish right now. By now this heron was getting a lot of attention, from the zookeepers, the media, and other green herons coming to check out why this one guy caught so many fish. To the bird behaviorists' delight, more and more of them started using this technique, and taught it to their chicks, and now there is a small local population of green herons at that zoo that are tool users ( popcorn), and supporting themselves very well. No other herons have done this, at the time of the article. Amazing....

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