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Entry 502Filed under Breeding

Orangutans Show Some Stone-Tool Behaviors—but Not the Full Sequence

Five captive orangutans took part in experiments involving stone percussion and puzzle boxes. The findings did not show an orangutan making and using its own sharp flake.
3-minute read By Animalso Team
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Orangutans in a small captive study spontaneously struck stones, and one juvenile used a human-made flake to pierce a puzzle-box membrane. But the experiments did not show an orangutan making a sharp flake and then using that same flake as a tool. That distinction is central to what the findings do—and do not—reveal.

What did the orangutan study find?

Motes-Rodrigo and colleagues tested five captive orangutans at Kristiansand Zoo in Norway and Twycross Zoo in England. In controlled experiments, the researchers supplied stone cores and hammers, along with baited puzzle boxes that gave the animals a reason to interact with the materials. The subjects were described as untrained and unenculturated in stone-tool making and use.

Three orangutans spontaneously engaged in lithic percussion—striking stones against other surfaces. In later experimental conditions, sharp-edged pieces detached. Separately, one juvenile used a flake made by a human to pierce a puzzle-box membrane. These were component behaviors, not proof that an orangutan independently completed the entire sequence of making and using a sharp stone tool. The 2022 study in PLOS ONE examined percussive behavior, sharp-edged stones, and the effects of social demonstrations.

Did an orangutan make and use its own stone tool?

No. The experiments did not document an orangutan successfully making a sharp flake and then using that self-produced flake. The study instead recorded stone percussion and the detachment of sharp-edged pieces in some conditions, plus the use of a researcher-made flake by one juvenile.

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The distinction matters because striking stone, producing a sharp edge, and using that edge to cut or pierce are separate actions. Evidence for one does not establish that the same animal completed all of them in sequence with a tool it made itself.

What happened when Loui struck a stone?

Loui, a juvenile orangutan, removed a stone core from a fixed platform and bashed it against the concrete floor and walls. On one trial, three sharp-edged pieces detached. The paper reports their weights as 1.9 g, 0.6 g, and 0.3 g. Loui did not then use those detached pieces as tools.

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In a separate condition, Loui picked up a human-made flake, held it in his mouth, and used it to pierce the membrane of a baited puzzle box. He then enlarged the hole by hand to reach the reward. The piercing behavior therefore involved a supplied flake, not one he had just made.

Did demonstrations teach the orangutans to make tools?

Social demonstrations did not substantially improve stone-tool making and use across the experiments. The authors did observe directed percussion on a core in one orangutan after demonstrations; they suggest this could reflect social acquisition of the target of percussive actions. That limited observation is not evidence that demonstrations reliably taught the full process of making and using a sharp tool.

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A separate study of captive chimpanzees, published in 2023, also addresses social learning of sharp stone-tool behavior. It provides comparative context, but it does not change what the orangutan experiments directly established. The chimpanzee study in Scientific Reports summarizes the orangutan finding as showing that no subject used a stone tool it had produced itself.

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What do the results suggest about orangutans and evolution?

The experiments show that some behaviors relevant to stone technology—percussion, detaching sharp-edged pieces under experimental conditions, and piercing with a supplied flake—can occur in captive orangutans without prior training in stone-tool use. The authors discuss whether component capacities might have deep evolutionary roots, but that is a hypothesis prompted by the findings, not proof that wild orangutans or ancestral species made stone tools.

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The sample was small, the subjects lived in captivity, and the tasks supplied materials and a food reward. The study therefore cannot establish how common these behaviors are among orangutans generally or whether they occur in the wild. The authors call for larger samples.

A 2024 experiment with human participants found that practical experience affected flake-cutting success and muscle effort. That work concerns human tool experience; it is not evidence about orangutan abilities. The human-participant study in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology is relevant only as context for how practice may matter in stone-tool tasks.

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