Orangutan melancholy photography

Darwin's theory of evolution emphasizes that the evolution direction of the main species on the earth is dominated by natural selection. Those who don't adapt to the environment will be eliminated, and those who adapt to the environment will survive. What we can see is that man is absolutely strong in essence and his social behavior is quite rich.

But for a long time, biologists and anthropologists have been thinking: Is human behavior inherited or learned? 1920, a thing that shocked the world happened: "wolf girl" was discovered near the Indian town of Midnapol. They were raised by wolves since childhood, and their behavior habits are exactly the same as wolves.

They eat raw meat, walk on all fours and scream at the sky. There are many similar examples, so people basically assume that people's behaviors, such as walking upright and talking, are acquired. Then the problem comes again. People can learn. Can animals learn?

To demonstrate this problem, you have to do experiments. The story of Wolf Child is well known, but less people know the story of Scarlet Child. "Scarlet Boy" is a chimpanzee named Shatek. It is quite famous in biology and anthropology, because it was raised as a human baby. It was the first orangutan to go to college and one of the first orangutans to communicate with people in sign language.

The genetic similarity between orangutans and humans is 96.4% (compared with 98.5% for chimpanzees), which is second only to gorillas among primates. If orangutans really "rise" as in film and television works, they may really pose a threat to us. On the other hand, Shatek is a male orangutan, born in 1977.

Shatek was born in a primate research center in the United States. A few months after his birth, he was sent to the famous University of Tennessee. Anthropologist Lynn became its "mother", responsible for educating Satek and observing whether it can learn human social behavior through training.

Lynn was very surprised by the experimental results. She found Shatek quite clever. She created a series of conditions, such as feeding Shatek milk powder, teaching him to walk, playing with toys, letting him sleep in a crib and wearing children's jumpsuits. According to the way of raising human babies, but Shatek completely adapted and didn't show any rejection.

Only Xia can't speak, and Lynn can only teach him to use sign language. Soon, Xia knew how to express hundreds of words such as "ice cream", "milk" and "toys" with gestures, and it was no problem to communicate with Lynn. It can even react differently to the emotional changes of "mom". When Lynn is angry, she will be trained with her head down. Lynn is very happy. It's jumping around.

But these are not enough. If Shatek wants to be a "human", he has to adapt to human society. So Lynn took Shatek to the University of Tennessee. She did research, and Shatek became a recognized student and got along very well with her classmates. The school has set up special examinations for Shatek, including distinguishing colors, using tools and expressing various words in sign language.

Xia's cleverness is reflected again. He didn't fail all the exams, and his grades were quite excellent. It doesn't regard itself as "alien" at all, enjoys getting along with others, and even took school year photos with other students. Lynn relies on Shatek to complete her own research project, which proves that animals can learn human social behavior.

However, Shatek's later fate was embarrassing. Shatek died three years ago and lived to be 40 years old, which was a normal life span among his peers, but his death attracted a lot of media attention. In addition to the particularity of Shattko, Shattko was forced to leave the crowd, go to the iron cage of the research center and live in the zoo.

It turned out that when Shatek was 9 years old, a female student cried and said that she had been attacked by it. Although Lynn repeatedly stressed that Shatek didn't attack anyone, Shatek was sent back to his birthplace and kept in a cage 1 1 year. It was very scared and kept gesturing to Lynn: "I want to eat ice cream, go out to play, mom, take me home."

Lynn could do nothing, so she had to shed tears and touch Xia's head. Shatek, who left the crowd, became increasingly depressed. At first, he would shake the cage, and then he just sat there motionless. It was not until he was 20 years old that the zoo in Atlanta offered to adopt him. Lynn was overjoyed and hurried to move with Shatek.

When moving, Lynn made a gesture and asked Shatek, do you think you are an orangutan or a human? Shatek replied: I am an orangutan and a human being. After entering the zoo, Shatek could not get along with other similar people. He always avoids these gorillas and has little activity except eating and sleeping. When Xia was old, Lin went to have a look. She shook her hand, took a small piece of iron from her pocket and handed it to "mom".

Lynn couldn't help crying at the sight of that small piece of iron. It turns out that Lynn taught Shatek to make money in his early years and exchanged small iron pieces for dollars to buy snacks. Xia has always kept the iron tablets of his childhood. When he saw "Mom" coming, he wanted to eat an ice cream instead. According to the investigation, Shatek suffered from severe depression before his death, which may be one of the reasons for his death.