The Cissy family lives in the Northern half of the Suaq study area. Cissy, the oldest female of the family has 4 daughters.
The Cissy family strikes us as especially intelligent. Cissy, her daughters and her grandchildren show the most sophisticated and varied behavior of all orangutans. They, for example, use tools more often and more flexibly than the others.
At the same time, Cissy and her kin are incredibly sociable and like to hang out together. They also often associate with members of other families or males. This gives the kids of the Cissy family the opportunity to learn from a broad variety of role models.
Especially the females of the Cissy family have exceptionally long and straight hair, which is why in the field we refer to them as the “pretty hair” family.