A study carried out at the University of Aarhus in Denmark has shown that great apes do not have as limited a memory as previously believed. In fact they have shown that chimpanzees and orangutansare able to remember personal events for up to three years after they occur. So far only memories of up to 72 hours before had been certified.
The long-term memory of apes is much greater than previously believed. To verify this, scientists forced the apes, three years ago, to perform a task only four times. Exactly they had to use a suitable tool, of all those that were inside a box, to reach fruit that was out of their reach. After several years they repeated the game in the rooms with the same apes (nine chimpanzees and five orangutans) and discovered that all but one orangutan were looking for the necessary tools in the same place they found them three years ago. Other control animals in the experiment did not go looking for these tools, allowing the researchers to infer that those apes remembered the game from years ago.
For Gema Martin-Ordas, project manager at Aarhus University, “it was really amazing that they could remember the event so quickly“, Which is” good evidence that questions the idea that non-human animals live trapped in time. “
The study, published in the scientific journalCurrent Biology, is a further step in understanding the differences and similarities of humans and apes. The latest research is showing that some abilities that seemed unique to humans are also common to great apes.
