The drawings of the primates are not "doodles"

• Drawing is a common behavior in humans but one that is also - although rarely - found in other primates, according to our partner The Conversation.

• Among the orangutans in a Japanese zoo, one female stood out for her very pronounced taste for drawing.

• The analysis of this phenomenon was carried out by Marie Pelé, researcher in ethology and Cédric Sueur, lecturer in ethology, primatology and animal ethics.

Until her death in 2011, Molly lived near Tokyo, Japan.

Around her 50s, Molly began to develop a passion for drawing, making nearly 1,300 designs in the last five years of her life.

Molly's story is not common: Molly was an orangutan.

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Drawing is a common behavior in humans. Around the age of 18 months, young children begin to make their first marks, their first traces and develop with age a greater or lesser interest in this activity. But drawing is a behavior that is also found in other primates such as chimpanzees, gorillas, macaques or even capuchins. Only here, it is not a behavior highly present in the natural repertoire of these animals, even if there are a certain number of anecdotal observations.

It is therefore in zoological parks and research institutes that keepers do not hesitate to give markers and tubes of paint to their animals to keep them occupied.

This is the case with the keepers of Tama Zoo, near Tokyo in Japan, who organize drawing workshops for their orangutans.

White canvases and 16 crayons of different colors are made available to all members of the group.

They are free to use this material as they see fit and are not in any way forced to draw.

Kiki and his son Riki, two of the orangutans at Tama Zoo (Japan) © Toshihiro Gamo / Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Thus, Molly enjoyed drawing while others saw no point in it.

This is the case of Julie, another female orangutan, who in five years has produced only 16 drawings.

However, although Molly produced a large number of drawings, none of them appear to represent anything (at least to a human being).

The drawings of Molly and her fellows are not figurative and at first glance seem to us to be mere "doodles", similar to those made by very young children.

Fortunately, the large collection of drawings produced by orangutans at Tama Zoo has enabled us to make careful study of them.

Show me how you draw, I'll tell you who you are

In order to have the most objective possible examination of the drawings made by the orangutans at Tama Zoo, we have implemented a very precise data collection protocol. On each drawing, we applied a grid of 10 tiles by 10 tiles allowing a more careful reading of each element. For each square, we have indeed noted a dozen qualitative and quantitative data such as the overlap of the sheet, the colors used, the presence of certain shapes such as

(back and forth lines), but also circles, loops or triangles. A real painstaking job since a total of 790 drawings were analyzed with the naked eye by three different observers.

For each of the 5 female orangutans, example of two drawings © Pelé et al., 2021 (via The Conversation)

Usually, the five female orangutans draw on half of the leaf, starting from its center.

They use three different colors on average and draw two

per sheet.

Circles, loops and triangles are much rarer and are only found in certain designs.

Molly differs from her peers in several ways.

It covers more the canvas, uses more colors, makes more curls.

Kiki, on the contrary, makes fewer lines, but they are more marked, bringing a higher contrast to his drawings.

There are also color preferences: green for Molly and Kiki, red for Julie, Yuki and Gypsy.

In addition to the different motivations for drawing in our five female orangutans, our first results therefore show that they do not draw in the same way either.

These differences could also be related to the personality of the females as well as their cognitive abilities.

More in-depth studies, particularly through new technologies, could allow us to explore the question.

For example, the use of touchscreen tablets coupled with eye-tracking modules (allowing the user's gaze to be followed) could shed light on the degree of anticipation and therefore of the intention of the individual who draws.

Example of a touchscreen tablet equipped with an Eye Tribe Tracker © Maurizio Pesce / Wikimedia CC BY 2.0

The large number of drawings made by Molly allowed us to study the evolution of her drawing behavior over time. As she grew older, Molly began to use less color, cover the canvas less, and focus her drawings less than before. These changes are certainly related to increasing physical limitations: she had gone blind in her left eye, for example. However, she created drawings that were always more complex than the other females, especially in terms of features. But Molly's designs also seem to vary with the people around her such as her healers. In our study, we were also able to highlight the influence of the seasons on the color of Molly's drawings. So, she preferred to use green in summer and winter and pink in spring and autumn.

The complexity of her designs, seasonal color variations, and other clues like starting in the center of the canvas indicate that Molly does not draw at random.

On the contrary, they let us think that our close cousins ​​would have certain premises necessary for the representation.

Is Molly an exception among cartoonist monkeys?

The 1960s saw what was later called "the golden age of ape drawing". At that time, several psychologists were interested in works carried out most often by chimpanzees. One of the best known, Desmond Morris, will publish

in which he traces the artistic creation of primates and brings together all the drawings and paintings of monkeys of the time. He will also work to promote the works of his male chimpanzee Congo on television and during exhibitions in the largest galleries in the world. Congo indeed showed a particular interest in painting, producing several hundred paintings until his adolescence. However, profiles like those of Molly and Congo remain rare.

In October 2021, Nénette settles down for a new painting session © Marie Pelé (via The Conversation)

Molly is no longer there, but another female orangutan, also very old, paints and draws whenever given the opportunity.

This is Nénette, the star orangutan of the Menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.

Strong in character, Nénette can remain concentrated for several tens of minutes on the same drawing;

This is quite rare as orangutans are curious and facetious animals.

Our “ORANG-OUTAN” file

With the team that takes care of Nénette, we have just set up a new research protocol to better apprehend and better understand the drawing in this female orangutan.

Do Nénette's drawings have anything in common with Molly's?

If yes, which ones ?

To be continued ...

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This analysis was written by Marie Pelé, researcher in ethology at the Catholic Institute of Lille (ICL) and Cédric Sueur, lecturer in ethology, primatology and animal ethics at the University of Strasbourg.

The original article was published on The Conversation website.

Declaration of interests

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• Japan

• Animals

• Design

• Monkey

• The Conversation

• Video

• Orangutan

• Planet

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