...orangutan enclosure was open. Head keeper Jerry Stones chewed out his staff, and the incident was forgotten. But the next time the weather was nice, Fu Manchu escaped again. Fuming, Stones recalls, "I was getting ready to fire someone." The next nice day, alerted by keepers desperate to keep their jobs, Stones finally managed to catch Fu Manchu in the act. First, the young ape climbed down some air-vent louvers into a dry moat. Then, taking hold of the bottom of the furnace door, he used brute force to pull it back just far enough to slide a wire into the gap, slip a latch and pop the door open. The next day, Stones noticed something shiny sticking out of Fu's mouth. It was the wire lock pick, bent to fit between his lip and gum and stowed there between escapes. Fu Manchu's jailbreaks made headlines in 1968, but his clever tricks didn't make a big impression on the scientists who specialize in looking for signs of higher mental processes in animals. At the time, much of the action in animal intelligence was focused on efforts to teach apes to use human languages. No researcher cared much about ape escape artists. And neither did I. In 1970, I began following studies of animal intelligence, particularly the early reports of chimpanzees who learned how to use human words. The big breakthrough in these experiments came when two psychologists, R. Allen and Beatrice Gardner, realized their chimps were having trouble forming wordlike sounds and decided to teach a young female...
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...Primates, being a type of mammal, include humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans etc. While they are still part of the mammal family, some of their parenting behaviors are different. For example, primates spend longer lengths of time caring for and educating their young caring before letting them be independent. Primates also tend to have longer periods of pregnancy in relation to most mammals. For example, a cat usually has her kittens within 3 months while a human will give birth to her child in 9 months. Another parental behavior that most mammals have in common is breastfeeding their young. Humans, cats, dogs, cows, whales, sheep, squirrels....(you get the point) all share that ability to produce milk. (Source: http://www.kidport.com/reflib/science/animals/Primates.htm) There are four main types of social groupings seen in primates: Solitary, Monogamy, Polygyny, and Polyandry. Solitary is understood as a society in which males occupy territories which overlap female territories. Males compete for females by calls and leaving scent markers. Monogamy is when a male and a female live together for a long period of time and little competition exists. Next, Polygyny, is when one or more males seek to have many female partners. This social group is actually more complex as it is divided into three categories. The first one-male Polygyny is where one male competes for obtaining maximum number of females to reproduce his offspring. The second is Multimale Polygyny in which...
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...The Gibbon Apes are formally known as the Hominoidea. Hominoidea stands for the “superfamily of apes”. The gibbon apes are also known for their size. The Gibbon’s are a very small animal, thats how most people can identify them. Even though their size might be small, but their species however is not small. The Gibbon Apes have 12 different species making them the largest group of the ape family. The gibbons scientific name is Hylobatidae. http://www.gibbons.de/main2/08teachtext/factgibbons/gibbonfact.html . The Gibbons are extremely similar to humans, meaning their senses. Their hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch is almost exactly like humans. The Gibbons eyes have the ability to see in color, which is not common for apes. Normally, the...
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...Foundation The Gorilla Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation, protection and well-being of gorillas through interspecies communication research and education. The foundation was established in 1976 and is best known for its groundbreaking work with two western lowland gorillas, Koko and Michael, who were taught to become fluent in American Sign Language (ASL). The results are published in numerous research papers, books and videos. Their current goals include establishing the Maui Ape Preserve, helping Koko to have a baby, with her new mate, Ndume, and thus foster cultural transmission of a human-taught language to a new generation of gorillas, providing and modeling the best care for gorillas in captivity, and developing multimedia and web-based educational resources for partner institutions, schools and advocates to help convert their knowledge base into practical conservation, legal rights and captive care achievements for great apes. The work of the Foundation is underwritten by donations from individuals, grants from foundations and corporations, and educational product sales. The Foundation receives no support from government sources. However, The Gorilla Foundation's good cause towards repopulating the species by mating Koko and Ndume has been marred by a sexual harassment case which involved the foundation's founder Dr.Francine Patterson who is also Koko's primary caretaker with two of Koko's handlers whereby they were ordered to...
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...Maisie and Indie are up close against the railing that wraps around the gorilla’s enclosure. Indie asks, “Oh, oh aren’t they gross?” about the two gorillas who are sitting up, almost on top of the glass. One of the gorillas is much smaller than the other. When I point to her and say, “She must be the female,” Indie asks, “So?” Bane says, “I bet you’re right,” and Indie and Maisie roll their eyes. Then Bane reads from the little sign next to the railing, “The big one is called Richard, and the female is Kamba. And look,” he says, pointing to a pink piece of paper, “it says Richard is forty-five today.” Julia says, “They’re cute!” Michael mimics Julia, then he calls her a big dork. “Look babe, he’s–yep, he’s jerking off!” Kyran says, grabbing Julia and making room for her to stand in front of him. The female gorilla starts walking away from the male gorilla. She doesn’t even get three feet away before Richard pulls her into him, holding her by the neck. Michael says, “Oh shit man, oh shit!” “They’re fucking,” says Michael, “they’re actually fucking!” Then he takes out his phone and starts filming them. “Ah, man!” he says, “I’m like fulfilling my dream of being a porn director!” Kyran laughs, but Julia says, “There are children here.” Then Kyran starts thrusting into Julia, which makes Michael laugh even harder. Julia cries, “Oh stop, oh stop it,” but that only makes Kyran thrust harder. “Oh my god, dude,” says Michael, turning to film them. He laughs, then he says, “Dude you’re...
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...LA Zoo Primates There are an absence of primates all over the world that show similar characteristic to humans. At the LA Zoo some of these characteristic from these primates can be found. Gorillas and chimps are both some of the most well know apes in the world making them the faces of primes. They are both fascinating and interesting animals. Gorillas are known to be one if not the largest primate in the world, males weighing all the way from 298 to 397 lbs and the females weighing about half of that from 150 to 249lbs. Do to their heavy weight the branches are not able to support their heavy weight therefore they tend to commute on the ground rather than traveling from tree to tree like other primate. Gorillas walk in a certain way called knuckle-walking. Males are able to reach a height of 5.6 to 5.9 ft tall and females reaching a height of no more than 4.6ft and having a shorter arm span than the males. Alongside with their size they...
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...Primate Bipedalism Andrez Guillen Anthropology 301-02 No other form of locomotion has been as dominant over the years as bipedalism. We humans take this form of stance for granted, not fully understanding its importance. Compared to other stances, such as quadrupedalism, bipedalism serves us a better in many areas. Here we will look at the the advantages of walking upright Many theories have been said about how early hominids began evolving their stance from quadrupedal to bipedal. Charles Darwin, for example, claimed that we stood up to free our hands for tool making (Douglas 2012). Others say that our evolution began up in the trees where we see other primates, such as orangutans, walk bipedal to get fruit. Another is the idea of “carrying,” here we see other primates go from a qudrapedal position to a bipedal position when carrying something of importance (offspring, food, tool). All of these theories have something in common, each shows how advantageous it is to be bipedal and it could be said that these advantages helped our ancestors survive. One possible explanation for the development of bipedalism, is our search for food. Here the argument is that 5 million years ago, fruit trees in Africa were spreading further and further apart from one another. Hominids would have to walk with their young to find fruit trees, this caused a great deal of discomfort for the females, so the solution was to have the monogamous male do the travel while the female stayed put...
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...Chimpanzees One of the the four ape species that professor Stanford discusses in his book, Planet Without Apes, is the chimpanzee. Chimpanzees can be found throughout the continent of Africa; they are primarily located in rain forests, but can also be found inside open woodlands or areas where trees and brush are present. Chimpanzees live in fission-fusion societies, which means that there community breaks apart for some part of the day, before coming back together as a single whole group for the rest of the time. In the chimpanzee community, males are known to never leave the place in which they were born and raised; while females are known to emigrate during or right after puberty. One of the biggest problems concerning chimpanzees is deforestation. Deforestation kills chimpanzees and separates many others from their communities, leading to territorial conflicts. As it is known, chimpanzees are very territorial animals who often fight against neighboring communities for territory. Deforestation tears down the communities of chimpanzees which forces them to move out and find new homes. While looking for a new place to live, chimpanzees will often times fight because there will be other chimpanzees residing in the territory which they are trying to move into. The other issue with deforestation is it leads to problems with genetic flow. Female chimpanzees are supposed to emigrate from their communities during or after they hit puberty to breed. If deforestation is killing...
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...World monkeys and catarrhines incorporate Old World monkeys, gorillas, and people. All New World monkeys are arboreal and live in the woods of Central and South America, while Old World monkeys incorporate both earthly and arboreal species. New world monkeys wandered from Old World monkeys around 30 million years back. New World monkeys have numerous remarkable attributes. Their teeth are organized as two incisors, one canine, three premolars, and three molars in every quadrant of the mouth. They have wide noses with round nostrils that open outward. New World monkeys have prehensile (getting a handle on) tails and Old World monkeys don't. Old World monkeys have characteristics that vary from New World monkeys. The teeth of Old World monkeys are composed as two incisors, one canine, two premolars, and three molars in every quadrant, which is an indistinguishable game plan from human teeth. They have limit noses with their nostrils pointing descending. Old World monkeys have either long or short non-prehensile tails. Old World monkeys have trademark anatomical specializations, including calluses on their posteriors for sitting on hard, intense tree limbs or the ground for long eras. Old World monkey females experience obvious estrus, substantial swellings around the genitalia telling guys that they are ovulating. Sexual dimorphism is by all accounts more predominant in Old World monkeys, particularly in the earthbound species....
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...The semi-/prehensile tail has independently evolved at least 14 times across 50 genera from 14 families of arboreal mammals, including Cebidae and Atelidae within Platyrrhini (New World monkeys) [1, 2]. Despite the importance of the semi-/prehensile tail for balance and support during locomotion and suspensory postures [3-8], literature lacks description about its motor coordination and control. Here, we report that wild bearded capuchin monkeys, Sapajus libidinosus (previously known as Cebus libidinosus) use their semi-prehensile tail as a variable cantilever; the vestibular and/or kinaesthetic cues associated with downward motion apparently trigger anchoring by the tail at the moment its support is needed to prevent the body from dropping. In an experimental setup, testing six monkeys singly, a monkey had to lean forward and orient itself obliquely (greater than 60o from the vertical) by its hindlimbs and tail and extend its forearms to reach for food–a posture impossible without support by a semi-/prehensile tail. An analysis of the slow-motion video recordings revealed that a monkey would orient its tail around a supporting branch of a tree prior to leaning forward such that the tail could be anchored over the branch at any given moment. It would then lean forward with its forearms extended, and would anchor a variable length of its tail only after it had oriented its body obliquely, instead of anchoring the tail prior to or immediately after it had leaned forward. Comparative...
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...offspring. The slight cannibalization of an infant may be just a result that males, unlike females, are not killing for nutritional value (Watts 2000). In contrast to males, who commit infanticide against stranger female chimpanzees, there is intra-community aggression of female chimpanzees toward females within the same community. These females do commit infanticide against other females of the same community. Lower and middle ranking females are more susceptible to intra-community infanticide. Still, unlike male infanticide against stranger female chimpanzees, female-female intra-community killing did not have the heightened aggression behavior of male chimpanzees, such as thrashing and playing with the corpse (Goodall, 1977). An important note on the female-female killings is that females who were killing infants and cannibalizing them, the attack on the mother appeared to be strictly related to the acquiring the infant as a source of food being that they would kill the infant and eat for about five hours on three observed occasions. Once the prey had been acquired there were no further aggressions toward the mother. Surprisingly, female chimps that attack lower ranking females would later display a “reassurance” behavior, which includes touching, kissing, or holding a subordinate (“About Chimpanzees: Social Organization”). Alpha females in a community are more known to cannibalize another lower ranking female’s infant for food. The observations made by Goodall 1977, Nishida 1985...
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...behavior and how they relate to humans. Topic 1. Primates to understand man. History of primatology. Comparative primatology. Primates in biomedical, growth and development studies. Analog and counterpart to interpret human behavior. Topic 2. Lifestyles Distribution and habitats of primates. Adaptations of human and non human primates to the environment. Diet and nutritional requirements. Size, body, digestive system, teething, locomotion and posture. Growth and Development. Topic 3. Cognitive abilities in primates Evolution of the sensory systems and the brain in primates. Cognition, communication and cultural behavior in primates. Non-verbal communication in primates and humans. Thesis Apes are similar to humans in many ways. They feel love, joy and sadness just like us. Apes share all the characteristics and emotions that we think of as human. They do experience deep sadness, for example when they are grieving or lonely, or when they have suffered the death of apparent or their young. They love each other as we do. They feel complex emotions such as loyalty and jealously. “If they are so related to us humans, then their culture is not much different than ours”. Primates to understand man Anthropologists study primates because by learning about species similar to us we learn about ourselves. Studying the behavior, anatomy, social structure, and genetic code of primates can reveal key differences and similarities between other primates and humans. From this, we can...
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...Interestingly, there is a group of living plants - the whisk ferns - which resembles Rhynia. Psilotum nudum which grows in moist, shady habitats in the Caribbean is such a plant. At one time, Psilotum was thought to be a surviving relative of Rhynia. It is, however, more generally thought to be a Fern Ally, related to the Ferns, with loss of features such as leaves and roots. Event 13 “IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORDATE” FINDING THE ANCESTOR OF VERTEBRATES (AND OURSELVES) 530 million years ago The Cambrian explosion created all the major phyla of animals that we have today. This includes the phyla Chordata (chordates). Primitive forms are creatures with evidence of a notochord, a structural rod of cartilage and neural tissue running down the long axis of the body. This notochord was the early precursor to the spine in vertebrates (animals with a true backbone, like fish), and modern examples of simple chordates include sea squirts and lancelets. Two Cambrian fossil localities are of key importance here: Chengjiang in Yunnan Province, southern China, and the Burgess Shales in the British Columbia Rockies of Canada. Both of these localities have produced fossils classified as chordates. The Chinese forms include the forms Myllokunmingia and Haikouichthys (it has even been suggested these could be primitive vertebrate jawless fish). The Canadian form (somewhat later in the Cambrian period) is Pikaia, which especially resembles the modern lancelet. Event 15 “GET OUT OF THE...
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...A hominid is defined as ‘modern human and African apes and their direct ancestors. The term previously referred to humans and human ancestors only, under a phonetic taxonomy.’ The earliest well-accepted hominin is the Australopithecus, or Southern ape. Fossils, dated to 4.2 to 2.5 mya have been found in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Chad and South Africa. From these fossils, we know that these early humans walked fully upright on two legs, known as bipedalism. These early humans showed prognathism, the jutting forward of the lower face and jaw area, they also had pointed canine teeth like that of apes. They had the brain size of chimps, about 480 ml, and weighed about 105 pounds on average. They also had long and heavily muscled arms and relatively shorter legs. These early hominins looked like apes, except they walked bipedally. Microscopic analyses of their teeth indicate a mixed vegetable diet of fruits and leaves. The fossil skeleton of ‘Lucy’ is an example of Australopithecus. The adaptive themes of bipedalism, large brains, complex social organizations, and tool technology were established during this period. The first hominin feature to evolve was bipedalism, millions of years before the development of our big brains. The evolution of bipedalism with the retention of long, strong, and powerful shoulders and arms was an adaptation to living in an environment of both arboreal (forested) and terrestrial (plains) areas, giving our early ancestors great adaptive...
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...Termites are one of chimpanzees’ favorite foods when Mother Nature decides to make it rain. But the question is how do these chimps become successful in capturing these termites that settle in small holes in the trees? Well it is due to their intelligence, in which they modify grass into a tool, which is known as termite fishing. In the article, Tool-Set for Termite-Fishing by Chimpanzees in the Ndoki Forest, Congo, it states that observations strongly states chimpanzees used two types tools in catching the termites, which are perforating sticks and fishing probes. In the first step they pluck a twig and begin to pick the leaves off making become just a stem. Then secondly they stick the twig into where the termites’ lye and wait a few second...
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