Helena Horton
1 February 2017 • 2:02pm
They have shown a female
orangutan potential mates on an iPad to see if she will choose one in order to
improve her mating chances.
If she seems to prefer one over
another, they will choose that mate to come over from an international zoo,
which could be as far away as Singapore.
The four-year experiment is
called "Tinder for orangutans" and the Apenheul primate park in
Apeldoorn will let 11-year-old Samboja look at potential partners from an
international breeding scheme.
A behavioural biologist at
the zoo, told
Dutch media that they hope to gain further insight into
how female orangutans make mating choices.
He said: "Often, animals
have to be taken back to the zoo they came from without mating.
"Things don’t always go well
when a male and a female first meet".
The "Tinder" experiment
is part of a broader look at the part emotions play in primate relationships.
The biologist said: "Emotion
is of huge evolutionary importance. If you don’t interpret an emotion correctly
in the wild, it can be the end of you."
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