MIXOLOGIST APES

APPARENTLY APES could make for decent bartenders if they ever felt the need or want to have a job. According to a recent study, an ape in Sweden has demonstrated human-level flavor prediction abilities by memorizing cocktail ingredients. By providing a captive orangutan with its own personal cocktail bar, researchers found that large primates exhibit a type of taste memory thought to be unique to humans. In a study published in the animal cognition journal, researchers at Lund University offered Naong, a male orangutan at a Swedish Zoo, three distinct tasting juices – cherry, rhubarb and lemon – as well as cider apple vinegar. Each in a small bottle on a table adjacent to his cage, Naong accessed the juices using a straw. He learned their flavors, and also the flavor of every possible pairing of the liquids mixed for him by a personal bartender. The researchers found that Naong not only remembered the flavor of each combination, but could predict whether combinations he had never tasted before would taste pleasant. Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc of Lund University said, “It has been considered that only humans can [make predictions in this way], but we challenged this and showed that an orangutan was able to predict whether never-before-experienced mixes would taste good or bad, and that he could do this as well as 1O human ‘control’ subjects.” To ensure that it wasn’t color he preferred, the researchers repeated the experiment using dyes to alter the natural color of each juice, but it was still the taste rather than the color that he chose. The study illustrates that it is not just humans who can use prior experiences to predict what will happen in new situations, an ability called “affective forecasting”. In 2O14, researchers at Santa Fe College discovered that chimps and gorillas first developed a taste for alcohol more than 1O million years ago.