"Sumatran orangutan mothers are not all the same when it comes to parenting behaviors," said Revathe Thillaikumar, a postdoctoral researcher at MPI-AB and first author of the study. "For example, we found that during the developmental period, some mothers consistently carried their infants more than others, while some terminated body contact more frequently than others. What was especially interesting is that these differences stayed consistent across the different infants of a mother, even when we accounted for factors known to affect maternal behavior."
The research examined six key maternal behaviors: body contact, staying close, carrying, feeding nearby, and terminating physical proximity. These behaviors are critical for infant survival and learning, as they shape the young orangutans' ability to navigate the dense canopies of their tropical rainforest habitats. The study, conducted at the Suaq Balimbing research site in Indonesia, involved 22 mother-infant pairs and over 6000 hours of observation.
Lead researcher Caroline Schuppli noted that the consistent variation among mothers suggests the existence of individual maternal personalities among orangutans. "The consistent differences among mothers-both in the extent of their behaviors and in how these behaviors changed over the course of infant development-suggest that orangutans may possess individual maternal personalities," she said.
Looking ahead, the researchers are interested in exploring the long-term impacts of these behavioral differences on infant development, though such insights may require another decade of data collection due to the extended developmental period of orangutans.
Research Report:Sumatran orangutan mothers differ in the extent and trajectory of their expression of maternal behaviour
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