LIFE on the edge of starvation means some orang-utans are digesting their own muscles. Halting the logging that is destroying their habitat could rescue them from the brink.
Bornean orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus) live in tropical rainforests, where the supply of fruit is erratic. To survive, the orang-utans eat poorly digestible leaves and bark in fallow years.
Erin Vogel of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, monitored wild orang-utans for five years. She found that when orangs had gone without fruit for several months, their urine contained nitrogen compounds indicating the apes had begun to digest their muscles for protein.
Because there is so little pristine forest left for the endangered apes, Vogel says it is also important to protect partially logged forests, and even create new ones. "By planting more trees that the orang-utans regularly consume in logged forests, you could potentially make the species less vulnerable," she says.
Journal reference: Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.1040
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