What happened
Rakus, a Sumatran orangutan, healed a wound on his face with a medicinal plant also used by humans in Southeast Asia, scientists said Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. Rakus was observed chewing and applying juice from the plant, akar kuning or yellow root, to the wound, then using the masticated leaves like a bandage. A month later the wound had "healed without any signs of infection," said study coauthor Isabelle Laumer, a primatologist with Germany's Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.
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