Discovery of a Primate Using a Plant as a “Wound Dressing”
A Sumatran orangutan treated itself for a facial injury using a bandage made of a medicinal plant, marking the first observation of similar behavior in a large primate living in the wild, as reported by “Scientific Reports” magazine.
According to Agence France-Presse, a roughly 30-year-old orangutan was spotted in June last year with a severe facial wound. Isabelle Laumer, a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the study’s lead author, stated: “It may have been injured during a fight with a male of the same species.”
Three days after the injury, the primate began chewing leaves from a tree locally known as Acar Kuning (Fibraurea tinctoria). Instead of swallowing them, it applied its fingers, soaked with the plant’s juice, to its wound before fully covering it with the tree’s paste.
The wound healed after five days. After two weeks, a barely visible scar remained.
This “treatment” used is not miraculous but is part of the traditional medical protocol in the region spanning from China to Southeast Asia.
Isabelle Laumer explained that this tree and other similar species “are used as traditional remedies for various diseases such as malaria” because they have many properties, acting, for example, as antibacterial and anti-inflammatory agents.
The study confirmed that this outcome represented the first “documented” case of a wild animal treating its own wound using a plant containing bioactive compounds.
If this result is corroborated by further observations, it will be added to the growing list of self-medication behaviors in animals, particularly primates.
