Orangutans can get injured when they fight with other individuals. This is Rakus who just became a flanged male. He got injured maybe when he met and fought with another flanged male.
Do you apply Povidone Iodine on the wound when you get injured?
Just like humans, Rakus also treated his wound using medicinal herbs. Based on field observation, Rakus treated his wound by rubbing Akar Palo leaves (pict) on them.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get any photos of this action but thanks to field team for the interesting observation!
As you can see, a few weeks later, the wound on Rakus’ face seemed to have healed and there was new tissue covering the wound. Self-medication also occurs in Bornean orangutans as reported by Morrogh-Bernard et. al (2017)
Ref: Morrogh-Bernard, et al. (2017). Self-medication by orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus) using bioactive properties of Dracaena cantleyi. Scientific Reports, 7(1), 1-7.
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Photo by Team SUAQ. Data & Pictures provided by the research teams of Universitas Nasional (UNAS), the Department of Anthropology at the University of Zürich (AIM), and the Development and Evolution of Cognition Research Group at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour (DECRG)
