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‘Orangutan, heal thyself’: First wild animal seen using medicinal plant

The Sumatran orangutan used a plant known to humans for its medicinal qualities.
  1. Gayathri Vaidyanathan

    1. Gayathri Vaidyanathan is a science journalist based in Stuttgart, Germany.

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An adult flanged male Sumatran orangutan sitting in a tree.

Rakus, two months after he was observed applying a poultice to an open wound on his cheek. The wound is healed and the scar is barely visible. Credit: Safruddin

An orangutan in Sumatra surprised scientists when he was seen treating an open wound on his cheek with a poultice made from a medicinal plant. It’s the first scientific record of a wild animal healing a wound using a plant with known medicinal properties. The findings were published this week in Scientific Reports1.

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Nature 629, 737 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01289-w

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 07 May 2024: An earlier version of this story featured papers cited incorrectly in the reference list. This has now been corrected.

References

  1. Laumer, I. B. et al. Sci. Rep. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-58988-7 (2024).

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  2. Huffman, M. A. & Caton, J. M. Int. J. Primatol. 22, 329–346 (2001).

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  4. Mascaro, A., Southern, L. M., Deschner, T. & Pika, S. Curr. Biol. 32, R112–R113 (2022).

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