Researchers working in the UK, Germany, and Indonesia concluded that the diet of orangutans is largely determined by social learning rather than their own individual foraging efforts.
It was observed that although young apes showed greater activity in exploring various objects compared to observing the actions of their conspecifics, most of these exploratory sessions took place only a couple of hours after they had observed other orangutans. Furthermore, it was established that social learning successfully compensates for the deficit in independent foraging skills among young individuals.
The results of this study were published in the scientific journal Science.