Latest news with #MaxPlanckInstituteofAnimalBehaviour
The Star
03-07-2025
- Health
- The Star
Orangutans also need an afternoon nap sometimes, researchers find
Orangutans, just like humans, also need to compensate for lost sleep with naps, according to new research. Watching them snooze was no easy task for researchers, they say. When we humans don't get enough rest at night, the next day we feel the strong urge to take a nap. It turns out that orangutans are no different. "If an orangutan does not get enough sleep, it does what any sleep-deprived human would do: It climbs into bed, lies down and takes a nap," says Alison Ashbury from Germany's Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour (MPI-AB). Ashbury, lead author of the study published in the journal Current Biology, lays out that moving through treetops, finding food, solving problems and maintaining social relationships are all physically and cognitively demanding tasks for orangutans. Wild Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) typically sleep for almost 13 hours per night, according to the research team. However, this duration can reportedly be shorter if other orangutans are sleeping nearby, if the night is particularly cold, or if the animals have travelled long distances during the day. It turns out that, just like us, orangutans also feel the need to take a nap if they haven't had enough sleep the night before. Photo: Robert Michael/dpa Ashbury noted that it was interesting that simply being near other orangutans was associated with shorter sleep durations. "Imagine staying up late when hanging out with your friends, or your roommate snoring so loudly in the morning that you wake up early. I think it's a bit like that," she said. Orangutans may prioritise socialising over sleeping, or their sleep may be disturbed by the presence of others – or both. The researchers observed how long the animals spent in their daytime nests depending on their night-time sleep and found a clear compensatory effect: when the orangutans had slept less at night, their daytime naps were 5 to 10 minutes longer for every hour of lost night-time sleep. On 41% of the observed days, orangutans reportedly took at least one nap, with an average duration of 76 minutes. Additionally, on days when their naps were shorter, they took more naps. "Even a short nap can have a significant restorative effect on humans," said co-author Meg Crofoot, director at MPI-AB. "It is possible that these naps help orangutans recover physiologically and cognitively after a poor night's sleep, just like humans." The study's findings expand the understanding of the evolutionary origins and ultimate functions of sleep. "Why have animals, from humans to primates, spiders and even jellyfish, evolved to spend such a large part of their lives in this vulnerable, unconscious state?" Crofoot asked. The research team analysed the behaviour of adult orangutans at the Suaq Balimbing Monitoring Station on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. They used a long-term dataset on nest usage from 53 animals over 276 nights and 455 days between 2007 and 2021. Compared to other orangutan populations, the Suaq orangutans were found to build daytime nests more frequently. These nests are simpler and quicker to construct – usually in less than two minutes – than night-time nests but still provide a stable and safe place for a nap. Observing the animals while they napped was not easy, the researchers said. An orangutan builds a nest high up in a tree every evening, spending about 10 minutes bending, weaving and breaking branches, supplemented with a mattress of leaves. "From our vantage point on the ground, we usually cannot see orangutans in their night-time nests at all, but we can hear them getting comfortable," explained Caroline Schuppli, a group leader at MPI-AB. "At some point, everything becomes quiet and still. And in the morning, it's exactly the opposite." The researchers interpreted the quiet phase as the sleep phase. – By Tatjana Bojic/dpa
Perth Now
30-06-2025
- Science
- Perth Now
Orangutans have power naps to make up for lost sleep
Orangutans enjoy power naps. Scientists studied 53 of the wild primates for more than a year in the rainforests of the Indonesian island of Sumatra and found that they mirror humans by catching up on shuteye during the day if they get less rest at night. Orangutans typically get nearly 13 hours of sleep at night in big leafy nests built high in trees. But when their slumbers are cut short, they make up with a 76-minute power nap — or longer if the previous night was shorter. Alison Ashbury, the study's first author and a scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour and the University of Konstanz in Germany, said: "Moving through the canopy, finding food, solving problems, navigating social relationships; these are all tiring and cognitively demanding tasks. "When an orangutan doesn't get enough sleep, it does what any sleep-deprived human might do: it climbs into bed, lies down, and takes a nap."
Irish Examiner
22-05-2025
- Science
- Irish Examiner
Three ground-breaking studies on family lives of great apes... our nearest and dearest
Homo homini lupus est — man is a wolf to man Diogenes, 'the Cynic', rejected convention and lived in a barrel. According to historian Frederic Copleston, he did in public "what it is generally considered should be done in private — and even what should not be done in private". 'Cynic' means 'canine'; Diogenes and his followers, 'the disciples of the dog', held up the lives of animals as a model to mankind. Theirs was a moral exhortation, but studying the ways of other creatures can tell us much about ourselves. Aristotle wrote about animals, as Pliny the Elder would do four centuries later. Porphyry, famously, advocated vegetarianism: "When animals are sacrificed, harm is done to them, in that they are deprived of soul," he declared. Caligula's alleged appointment of his horse to the Senate appears, however, to have been fake news. Over the next two millennia, animals would be regarded as 'lesser folk', mere 'brute beasts', entirely unrelated to humans. 'I am no kin to the monkey and the monkey is no kin to me' a fundamentalist hymn proclaims. But the insights of Lamarck and Darwin would change that. They made us realise that the ways of animals are often remarkably similar to ours. Indeed, animal studies have helped us understand many of the peculiarities of human behaviour. Three ground-breaking papers, just published, concern the family lives of great apes... creatures which we now accept as our nearest and dearest. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, working at the Tai National Park in the Ivory Coast, spent almost 4,000 hours observing 50 chimpanzee mothers with infants under the age of 10. They found that 'attachment theory', developed by psychologists studying human behaviour, can be applied to chimps. Body contact between mothers and infants was one of the maternal behaviors examined in the study. Picture: Caroline Schuppli 'Attachment', the affectionate bond between a human mother and her offspring, is crucial to a youngster's subsequent mental and physical well-being. "Secure attachment arises from confidence in the caregiver's ability, nurtured by their high responsiveness." Faced with a strange situation, an infant will immediately seek the protection of its mother. But, if she is unresponsive, the child may exhibit 'disorganised attachment', characterised by aggressive or antisocial behaviour. Young chimps, the researchers found, exhibit 'organised' attachment, but they never show the 'disorganised' form. The black boxes show human attachment types. The white boxes depict the respective predicted behaviour of offspring towards mothers, given the applied assessments Another team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute have been investigating the behaviour of orang-utan females with babies in the wild. Analysing 15 year of data, they found that, just like their human counterparts, orang-utan mothers have varied and flexible approaches to caring for their infants. They "showed variation in behavioural plasticity … otherwise called maternal personality". "Mothers differed in how they modified their behaviour in response to their offspring's increasing age." They adapt their approaches as a baby develops and as circumstances change. Each mother has her own set of procedures which she uses consistently, "strengthening the notion that there is personality, specifically maternal personality, in non-human primates". 'Layered complexity', the repetition of phrases denoting particular entities, was thought to be a feature unique to human language. Now, researchers from the University of Warwick have identified similar structures in the vocalisations of orang-utans in Sumatra. This suggests that this complex linguistic trait first evolved in a common ancestor of both orang-utans and humans.
CBC
20-02-2025
- Science
- CBC
These animals can predict volcanic eruptions, massive storms and more
Social Sharing For thousands of years, humans have taken cues from animals that seem to have a sixth sense when it comes to impending natural disasters and changes in weather. Sicilian goat herders in the region surrounding the active volcano Mount Etna, for instance, have noticed behavioural changes in their goats prior to major volcanic eruptions for centuries. "But the key is: Are [the animals] sensing it early enough that we can use this information to potentially also warn people?" asks Martin Wikelski, a behavioural biologist at Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, in the documentary The Secret Knowledge of Animals. Wikelski is the founder and director of the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space, or ICARUS, initiative: a collaborative effort to track wildlife around the world. He believes technology can enable animals to share their knowledge with humans. Hundreds of thousands of solar-powered transmitter tags have been placed on animals across the globe, and the data about their movements and behaviour is teaching scientists about how animals respond to natural disasters, weather, poaching threats and more. The Secret Knowledge of Animals shows some of these animal teachers in action. Goats can predict volcanic eruptions Wikelski wanted to test if there was any truth to the local lore about goats predicting volcanic eruptions at Mount Etna, so he began studying the goats' movements in 2011. After monitoring the region's goats prior to eight major volcanic eruptions, Wikelski and his colleagues succeeded in measuring specific movements that can accurately predict a volcanic eruption — up to 14 hours in advance. Before any sign of volcanic activity, nearby animals flee their pastures higher up the volcano and head down toward the forest. It is still not known exactly what senses the goats are using to predict these events, but Wikelski speculates that they may be able to smell certain gases like sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, which are released prior to an eruption. Similar research could also be used to help predict earthquakes. These goats know when a volcano is about to erupt – way before humans do 6 hours ago Duration 1:50 Migratory birds know how to avoid tsunamis and cyclones The bristle-thighed curlew nests in the remote tundra of Alaska and migrates to islands in the central and south Pacific for the winter. "A number of published scientific studies have shown that migratory birds are able to deviate from their migration route; they can change direction to avoid an oncoming hurricane," Frédéric Jiguet, an ornithologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, says in French in The Secret Knowledge of Animals. "When the air currents get too strong, especially in cyclones, they land to avoid getting caught. So all this means that there's a certain amount of premonition around weather conditions that enables them to adapt. " Jiguet and his colleagues at the Kivi Kuaka project believe that bristle-thighed curlews could help protect local human populations from extreme weather. They are recording the birds' movements using satellite telemetry, in conjunction with the ICARUS initiative, to develop an early warning system that may one day protect islanders from impending disasters, like tornadoes and tsunamis. Bats leave clues about future viral outbreaks Straw-coloured fruit bats, also known as eidolons, are the most numerous mammal in southern Africa, according to the documentary. Considered the "gardeners of Africa," eidolons are important seed dispersers and pollinators of plants, and some have been observed to travel over 100 kilometres in a single night. Wikelski estimates that the eidolons in Zambia alone are responsible for planting approximately 80 million trees per night. "This is what keeps Africa green," he says in the film. Wikelski and his team are tracking the movements of these mammals from space to better understand their essential role in the ecosystem of Africa, and how they might protect the near-threatened species from hunting and habitat destruction. Tracking their migratory route and the antibodies they carry may also help scientists pinpoint geographic location of emerging diseases. "We can see where [the bats] went, and we can say, 'Well, all of the ebola antibodies are in bats that flew in the western part of Congo,' for example," says Wikelski. Zebras, giraffes and other wildlife help prevent rhino poaching Wikelski's tracking technology is also used in the ongoing war against poaching. According to The Secret Knowledge of Animals, 17,000 African elephants are illegally killed each year for their ivory. Meanwhile, about 1,000 rhinos are hunted for their horns. In South Africa's Kruger National Park, the entire community of large mammals is tracked around the clock to monitor how animals respond to the presence of humans. Rhinos are tagged and tracked so rangers can find them at any time, as well as zebras, giraffes, impalas and wildebeest, since their natural flight response can signal the presence of poachers. "Animals react differently to a lion or a poacher. The lion is local, [and] most of the time, it's not hunting. The poacher is coming in from somewhere, walking through an environment and is trying to find … a rhino," Wikelski says in the film. "We can, fairly easily, distinguish the reaction of animals towards a lion or towards a poacher." As more and more animals grow restless, it signals a human intruder and triggers an alarm for park rangers. Tracking helps protect whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence In Canada, scientists use tracking information to help protect the North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It's one of the most endangered large whale species, with fewer than 360 individuals remaining. Ocean warming is forcing them to spend more time in busy shipping and fishing zones, where they are increasingly coming into lethal contact with human activities. "There's three primary threats: ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear and climate change," says Sarah Fortune, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, in the documentary. Intense monitoring of this species is now required by law in Canada. Whales are tracked using acoustic technology alongside aerial and at-sea surveillance, and a zone of protection moves with the animals. Human activity must adjust to the whales' movements, not the other way around. This is the idea behind dynamic management — and it's only possible by tracking the individual animals. Human activities are having a profound effect on our planet. Understanding the secret knowledge of animals may be critical not only to their survival, but our own as well. Watch the documentary on CBC Gem and the Nature of Things YouTube channel.
The Independent
19-02-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Scientists perplexed to see wild fish recognise specific humans: ‘It was like they were studying us'
Scientists at a Mediterranean research station have found that some wild fish can tell apart humans, recognising and targeting specific divers who had fed them before. The study, published in the journal Biology Letters on Tuesday, found that some wild fish can use visual cues to identify specific humans even when their faces are covered by diving gear. Previous lab studies have shown that captive fish, like archerfish, can recognise human faces in controlled settings. However, there is little evidence that wild fish could do the same, say researchers from Germany 's Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour (MPI-AB). To test this, scientists conducted a series of experiments at a research site eight meters underwater in the Mediterranean Sea where wild fish have become habituated to divers. In the first phase of the experiments, study co-author Katinka Soller attempted to attract the attention of local fish by wearing a bright red vest, and fed fish while swimming a length of 50m. Gradually, she removed the vest and wore plain dive gear, kept the food hidden, and fed fish only after they had followed her the full 50m. The fish, according to scientists, were 'willing volunteers' in the study who came and went as they pleased. Two species of seabream fish were particularly willing to engage, they said. After 12 days of training, 20 fish followed Ms Soller, who could recognise several of the fish from their physical traits. 'There was Bernie with two shiny silver scales on the back and Alfie who had a nip out of the tail fin,' she said. In the next experimental phase, researchers tested if these same fish could tell Soller apart from another diver, study senior author Maëlan Tomasek. Dr Tomasek's diving gear 'differed notably' in some colourful parts of the wetsuit and fins, researchers said. This time the divers started at the same point and then swam in different directions, but Dr Tomasek never fed the fish that followed him. Scientists were surprised to find that while the fish followed both divers equally on the first day, the number of fish following Ms Soller increased significantly from day two. Researchers then focused on six fish out of the large group to study individually and found that they showed 'strong positive learning curves.' The findings suggest the fish were conscious of both divers and tested each one to learn that Katinka produced the reward at the end of the swim. However, when scientists repeated the experiment wearing identical diving gear, the fish were unable to discriminate them, they say. Based on this observation, researchers suspect the fish associated differences in the dive gear – most likely the colour cues – with each diver. 'Almost all fish have colour vision, so it is not surprising that the sea bream learned to associate the correct diver based on patches of colour on the body,' Dr Tomasek said. 'We already observed them approaching our faces and scrutinising our bodies. It was like they were studying us, not the other way around,' Ms Soller said.
