Azy (orangutan)

Azy

Azy (born December 24, 1977 in Rock Creek Park , Washington, DC ) is a male orangutan from the Great Ape Trust Research Center in Des Moines , Iowa , where he has been housed since September 2004. The animal was in 1977 at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park born and lived until 1980 in the zoo of Albuquerque .

Orang Utan Language Project

In 1995 Rob Shumaker in the so-called Tank Think of the Smithsonian's Zoo with Azy and his sister Indah and two other orangutans a language project (Orangutan Language Project) as part of a research series on cognition in great apes . Both showed cognitive abilities that are exceptional for orangs.

Azy consistently performed above average in tests of memory performance and problem-solving strategy . Right at the start of the tests, he even managed to escape from his enclosure .

As a result, Azy and Indah became the only orangs in the world who learned to communicate with the help of written symbols. In 2003 they both mastered 13 symbols. You could also denote the number of objects with the numbers 1 to 3 and arrange them accordingly. After Indah died in 2004, Azy is the only living orangutan with these abilities. The orangutan Chantek, on the other hand, learned over 100 terms of sign language .

Using a computer program developed for the primates , Azy now uses over 70 symbols for various objects, including food, people, and other orangs. Azy also demonstrated that he is able to understand the perspective of other individuals.

Azy is featured extensively in an episode of the BBC documentary series Nature: Extraordinary Animals . He weighs around 270 pounds and has an arm span of about 2.5 m.

literature

The Infinite Minds - Animal Intelligence . Lichtenstein Creative Media, ISBN 1-888064-28-5 , p. 12 ff.
Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia . Bernhard Grzimek, Melissa C. McDade, Gale, 2003, ISBN 0-7876-5788-3 , p. 156.

Individual evidence

^ National Zoo Puts Six Orangutans to Work in a High-Wire Act . The New York Times , August 21, 1995.
^ Furry logic . The Guardian , June 19, 2003.
^ Robert William Shumaker: An Examination of Numerical Competence Within the Family Hominidae with an Emphasis on Orangutans (pongo pygmaeus) . Dissertation abstracts international, Section B: The Sciences and Engineering 62,10 (2002), p. 4416.
↑ Des Moines Orangutan Dies, Radio Iowa, Nov. 13, 2004.
↑ Conversations among relatives . Der Spiegel , December 17, 2007.
^ Animal Minds . National Geographic , March 2008.
^ Extraordinary Animals

[1] National Zoo Puts Six Orangutans to Work in a High-Wire Act . The New York Times , August 21, 1995.

[2] Furry logic . The Guardian , June 19, 2003.

[3] Robert William Shumaker: An Examination of Numerical Competence Within the Family Hominidae with an Emphasis on Orangutans (pongo pygmaeus) . Dissertation abstracts international, Section B: The Sciences and Engineering 62,10 (2002), p. 4416.

[4] Des Moines Orangutan Dies, Radio Iowa, Nov. 13, 2004.

[5] Conversations among relatives . Der Spiegel , December 17, 2007.

[6] Animal Minds . National Geographic , March 2008.

[7] Extraordinary Animals