事業報告

事業番号：25-016

The purpose of this travel was to study the social interactions of orangutans.

報告者： Renata Andreia da Silva Mendonça

期間： 2013/9/4 - 2013/12/12

The target of my research is the orangutan, that leaves in exclusively in Sumatra and in Borneo. Since, I am interested in studying the behaviour of Borneo orangutans as wild individuals, the least studied of the two species, it is necessary to go to Borneo, Malaysia.

To study orangutan development in wild orangutans, it is very important to focus in mother-infant interactions, the strongest (and the only stable) social bond known in orangutans. The mother provides the primary care and contributes to the development of the repertoire of social behaviours in her offspring, being the essential behavioural models during the long-term attachment with their offspring.

The main objective of this field research is to study the social interactions between female orangutans and their offspring, aiming to understand how ecological factors and hormonal status of the mother influence mother behaviour toward her offspring. My focus is mother-infant dyads, however data on other classes, such as, juveniles, and adult males, are also being collect for further comparisons. One day of work starts around 5 am, when orangutans wake up from the nest, and ends around 6pm when they make a new nest to sleep for the night. I go to the forest and collect data and samples with the help of three well trained research assistants. We follow one orangutan per day, since they are solitary species, according to a protocol used by all orangutans study sites (http://www.aim.uzh.ch/Research/orangutannetwork.html). Activity of mother and infant is collected, social interactions between them and with other individuals, feeding behaviour and food list, as well as, urine samples for posterior hormonal analysis.

Social interactions


Collecting Data

HOPE　Project<>