Maternal ranging strategies facilitate offspring social play at energetic cost in the most solitary ape

Abstract

Abstract In most vertebrates, social play among peers is considered essential for behavioral development. Yet in solitary species bearing single offspring, opportunities for social play are inherently scarce. Whether mothers of such species actively facilitate play opportunities for their offspring, and at what cost, remains unknown. We used 15 years of behavioral and movement data (∼30,000 observation hours) from 31 wild Bornean orangutan ( Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii ) mother-offspring pairs to test whether mothers adjust ranging behavior to increase their offspring’s access to play with neighboring peers. Neighboring mothers with similarly aged offspring showed disproportionately high annual overlap in space use, independent of their relatedness or fruit availability. They intensified use of shared areas within existing range boundaries rather than shifting or expanding their ranges, indicating a fine-scaled ranging strategy. Mothers also incurred energetic costs; on days their offspring played with peers, mothers traveled farther and spent less time feeding. Travel distances were also elevated on the days before and after play, with mothers orienting movement toward play partners’ core areas before play and back toward their own core areas after play. This suggests these encounters are planned and actively pursued over multiple days rather than arising by chance. These findings reveal that orangutan mothers incorporate their infants’ social needs into daily ranging decisions, at a cost to their own energy budgets. This points toward an underappreciated form of maternal investment and illustrates how the social requirements of development can be met even near the solitary extreme of animal social organization.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2026 · DOI ↗