January 23, 2009
Whistling Orangutan at the National Zoo
Meet Bonnie, the Smithsonian National Zoo’s very own whistling orangutan. She got some attention recently when a paper published in Primates described her as the first ever case of a primate imitating a sound—a whistle—from another species—human—without being trained to do so.
“It seems like she heard people whistle and without being rewarded for it picked it up on her own,” says one of her caretakers, Erin Stromberg, who has worked for the National Zoo for over six years. “It is louder when you’re right in front of her, and she can go from either sucking in or blowing out to make the whistle. So she’s actually quite good at it.”
The behavior was first noticed back in the late 1980s, and was even picked up by another orangutan that has since passed on, but has only now been recorded. And the study, conducted in conjunction with the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, explored the phenomenon even further. Stromberg and another caretaker prompted Bonnie with short or long and one or two whistles to see if she would mimic the different sounds, and she did.
“They never cease to amaze me with their intelligence,” says Stromberg, of the orangutans.
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Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect and whistle a happy tune, so know one will suspect. . .la, la, la
I’m working in a rehabilitation centre in Sarawak, and one of our residents, Chiam, has been whistling ever since I’ve known her. After talking to her keepers, it has become clear that no one taught her this skill either, she’s simply picked it up by being around humans emitting the sound. Working daily around these apes, one takes their intelligence for granted, and I had no idea that what Chiam was doing was quite so ground-breaking.
To read more about Chiam, and the other residents, visit http://www.orangutanproject.com
They have been to the National Smithsonian Washington Zoo where they found their dear friend Bonnie, a 30-year-old orangutan with a hidden talent, is that she whistles!
This is just like Ujian, a 14-year-old whistling orangutan.