How similar are humans and orangutans?

From umbrella-making to learning how to self-medicate, we share plenty of skills with our fellow great apes

Fri 17 Aug 2018 17.31 BSTLast modified on Wed 22 Aug 2018 15.25 BST

When scientists talk about animals using tools, they’re not normally talking about the implements you might use to knock up some shelves. But while animals generally confine themselves to bashing things with the odd rock, in extraordinary footage broadcast last year as part of the BBC’s Spy in the Wild series, a wild female orangutan is seen using a saw she has found outside a hut to cut through a log – even pausing to blow away sawdust before continuing.

This human-like use of tools shouldn’t be that surprising to us. Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutans are three of the eight living great ape species, alongside humans, eastern and western gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. Humans and orangutans share 97% of their DNA, with their last common ancestor having lived an estimated 12-16m years ago. Only gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees have more DNA in common with humans.

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Echolocation: Bats and Whales Behave in Surprisingly Similar Ways

Oct. 29, 2013 — Sperm whales weigh up to 50 tons, and the smallest bat barely reaches a gram. Nevertheless, the two species share the same success story: They both have developed the ability to use echolocation -- a biological sonar -- for hunting. Now Danish researchers show that the biosonar of toothed whales and bats share surprisingly many similarities -- even though they live in very different environments and vary extremely in size.

Echolocation systems are one of Nature's extremely successful specializations. About 1,100 species of bats and roughly 80 species of toothed whales use the technique -- this is 25% of all living species of mammals. But why have such different animals as whales and bats both developed the same technique? The reason cannot be found in kinship, as bats and whales are no closer related to each other than all other mammals descended from the same land vertebrates for 200 million years ago.

The answer lies in convergent evolution -- when almost identical features or developments happen in different species. Through evolution both bats and toothed whales have developed the same functional characteristics.

Researchers from the two Danish universities, Aarhus University and University of Southern Denmark, have now studied the acoustic properties of the technique behind echolocation in bats and whales in the wild. Previous studies of their abilities to locate and catch prey have primarily been based on laboratory tests, and the studies in the wild now provide a much more realistic picture of how the animals use echolocation.

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How Similar Are the Gestures of Apes and Human Infants? More Than You Might Suspect

June 6, 2013 — Psychologists who analyzed video footage of a female chimpanzee, a female bonobo and a female human infant in a study to compare different types of gestures at comparable stages of communicative development found remarkable similarities among the three species.

This is the first time such data have been used to compare the development of gestures across species. The chimpanzee and bonobo, formerly called the "pygmy chimpanzee," are the two species most closely related to humans in the evolutionary tree.

"The similarity in the form and function of the gestures in a human infant, a baby chimpanzee and a baby bonobo was remarkable," said Patricia Greenfield, a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at UCLA and co-author of the study, published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Psychology.

Gestures made by all three species included reaching, pointing with fingers or the head, and raising the arms to ask to be picked up. The researchers called "striking" the finding that the gestures of all three species were "predominantly communicative," Greenfield said.

To be classified as communicative, a gesture had to include eye contact with the conversational partner, be accompanied by vocalization (non-speech sounds) or include a visible behavioral effort to elicit a response. The same standard was used for all three species. For all three, gestures were usually accompanied by one or more behavioral signs of an intention to communicate.

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