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Orangutan was seen treating his wound with a medicinal plant


After an orangutan hurt his face, scientists observed him chewing a plant known to relieve pain and applying a paste made from the leaves to the injury.

Researchers heard a fight between male orangutans in the treetops of a rainforest in Sumatra, Indonesia; a day later, they spotted Rakus sporting a pink wound below his right eyelid. “We don’t disturb the orangutan,” said an author of the new study, Isabelle Laumer, a primatologist and cognitive biologist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany. A notable 2008 study of Bornean orangutans documented three females rubbing their bodies with a paste of chewed Dracaena cantleyi plant, which local Indigenous people use to address joint and bone pain.

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Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant