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Zoo life boosts object exploration in orangutans
A new study comparing wild and zoo-housed Sumatran orangutans reveals that life in a zoo significantly alters how orangutans interact with their environment. Researchers 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 aged 0.5 to 76 years. The findings show that orangutans living in zoos engage in more frequent, more diverse, and more complex exploration than their wild counterparts.