Immature wild orangutans acquire relevant ecological knowledge through sex-specific attentional biases during social learning.

ABSTRACT: As a part of growing up, immature orangutans must acquire vast repertoires of skills and knowledge, a process that takes several years of observational social learning and subsequent practice. Adult female and male orangutans show behavioral differences including sex-specific foraging patterns and male-biased dispersal. We investigated how these differing life trajectories affect social interest and emerging ecological knowledge in immatures. We analyzed 15 years of detailed observational data on social learning, associations, and diet repertoires of 50 immatures (16 females and 34 males), from 2 orangutan populations. Specific to the feeding context, we found sex differences in the development of social interest: Throughout the dependency period, immature females direct most of their soci

SUBMITTER: Ehmann B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8133475 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature