July 2011
44 posts
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Desperate orangutan digs tunnel in cage →
faunafacts:
An orangutan at a Chinese zoo is missing his pregnant mate so much he has started to dig a tunnel in the hope of being reunited with her. Yunnan Wild Animal Park quarantined La Tewhen when she fell pregnant, much to the dismay of male orangutan Pei Pei.
According to the zoo Pei Pei has become quite depressed since being separated from his ‘wife’.
Pei Pei flatly refused to go...
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Most Experiments On Monkeys Have Little Medical...
A review of experiments on non-human primates over a ten year period, led by Sir Patrick Bateson, president of the Zoological Society of London, found that nine per cent resulted in no scientific or medical benefit.
In addition a majority of the 3,000 experiments on monkeys funded by Britain’s three chief funding bodies between 1996 and 2006 did not have a significant medical impact.
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Anonymous asked: where did you earn your diploma from? and did you major in primatology?
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Chimp Brains Don’t Shrink
Unlike humans, chimpanzees’ brains don’t shrink as they get older. That means that, so far, people seem to be the only lucky species whose brains wither with age, researchers report online July 25 in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Chimp aging seems to be on a different trajectory than humans’,” says aging and Alzheimer’s expert Caleb Finch of the University of Southern...
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Bamboozled! Amazing Pictures Of A 30 Stone...
When wildlife photographer Andy Rouse was told he would find a family of endangered gorillas high on the mountain, he did not expect to find them this high.
Sitting back in the foliage as if it was a cocktail bar, the mountain gorillas had been gorging on alcoholic sap from fresh bamboo shoots and were looking distinctly the worse for wear.
Some were propping up the bar with a bleary air, while...
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Chimp Nest Architecture Has Lasting Foundations
When a chimpanzee builds a tree house, it goes for the lazy option: prefab. Although they make a new nest every night, chimps often build them on branches that have previously been shaped into the perfect foundation.
While animals like beavers and birds are famous for their nest-building, the great apes - including chimpanzees - are the only primates to build such structures. Chimps start by...
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Macaques Leap Off Lamp Post Into Water For Fun
Tombstoning has become popular with daredevil thrillseekers - and the craze seems to have spread to our monkey cousins.
While people tend to jump off cliffs, bridges and piers into the water below, these wild macaques scrambled up a lamp post.
And even barbed wire wrapped around their improvised climbing frame could not stop them.
Some contented themselves with a low launch from the base,...
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Alpha-Baboon Benefits Come At Stressful Cost
If you’re a baboon, being in charge gives you a lot of advantages: you have better access to food, you get more action from the ladies, and your kids tend to grow faster and live longer. Low-rankers, meanwhile, must expend more time and energy to get food and mating opportunities. It makes sense to assume that the baboons at the bottom of their hierarchy might experience more stress than...
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Bornean Orangutan Twins Born
This pigeon pair of Bornean orangutans look too tired to be worried about the excitement, but their birth could be good news for conservation efforts.
The twins were born in the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens last Friday, with the male baby weighing 2 kg and the female about 1.4 kg.
This is the first successful breeding of Bornean orangutan twins in Hong Kong, bringing...
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Chimpanzees In Budongo Forest In Uganda Regularly...
The authors of a study called High Frequency of Postcoital Penis Cleaning in Budongo Chimpanzees do not beat about the bush. “We report on postcoital penis cleaning in chimpanzees,” they write. “In penis cleaning, leaves are employed as ‘napkins’ to wipe clean the penis after sex. Alternatively, the same cleaning motion can be done without leaves, simply using the...
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Help Save The Horton Plains Slender Loris (And...
Until recently the Horton Plains slender loris (Loris tardigradus nycticeboides) was believed possibly extinct. In 2009 after two hundred hours of surveying ZSL EDGE researchers rediscovered this sub-species and took the first ever photographs and measurements of a specimen. There are only approximately 80 individuals left and they need your help now. The principal threat facing the slender...
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Chimpanzees 'Hunt Using Spears'
Published in 2007, as a ‘break-through’, but I thought it was still interesting. — PrimateWin x
Chimpanzees in Senegal have been observed making and using wooden spears to hunt other primates, according to a study in the journal Current Biology.
Researchers documented 22 cases of chimps fashioning tools to jab at smaller primates sheltering in cavities of hollow branches...
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Captivity Affects Zoo Chimps' Mental Health
Many chimpanzees housed in zoos show abnormal behavior that suggests mental illness, according to a new PLoS One study.
The documented behaviors, which included self-mutilation, repetitive rocking, and consumption of feces, are symptoms of compromised mental health in humans, and are not seen in wild chimpanzees, the authors say. The study found that even chimps at very well-regarded zoos...
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Chimp Recognises Synthetic Speech
A talented chimpanzee called Panzee can recognise distorted and incomplete words spoken by a computer, scientists have discovered.
That suggests that apes may be more capable of perceiving spoken sounds than previously thought, and that the common ancestor of humans and chimps may also have had this ability.
It also refutes the idea that humans have brains uniquely adapted to process...
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Monkeys 'Also Give In To Their Children's Temper...
The research shows that it is not just humans who pander to their children’s demands to keep them quiet in public.
Scientists found that female monkeys are more likely to feed their offspring if their crying is annoying nearby animals, particularly those that could pose a threat.
The team from Roehampton University in London followed 11 female rhesus monkeys on Cayo Santiago, also...
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Monkey Has Form Of Self-Awareness
In the first study of its kind in an animal species that has not passed a critical test of self-recognition, cognitive psychologist Justin J. Couchman of the University at Buffalo has demonstrated that rhesus monkeys have a sense of self-agency — the ability to understand that they are the cause of certain actions — and possess a form of self awareness previously not attributed to them.
The...
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Crested Black Macaque Steals Camera And...
A macaque monkey in Indonesia took a camera from a wildlife photographer before snapping himself in a variety of poses.
The primate went to investigate the equipment before becoming fascinated with his own reflection in the lens.
And it wasn’t long before the crested black macaque hijacked the camera and started snapping away sending award-winning photographer David Slater bananas.
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Close Social Ties Make Baboons Better Mothers
Baboons whose mothers have strong relationships with other females are much more likely to survive to adulthood than baboons reared by less social mothers, according to a new study by researchers at UCLA, the University of Pennsylvania and other institutions.
“If you’re a baboon, the strength of your mother’s relationship with other females is the best predictor of whether...
occasionallybambi asked: I've just sat and read all of your posts (and reblogged a few). Probably the first blog related to primates that doesn't infuriate me. Gold star, haha.
So, er, the Psychology department at my Uni is...
No shit do I want to go. Could I? Yes, because of the Primatology course I’m taking over the Summer. Can I? No, because I have to stay behind and study my bullshit Media course I hate that I enrolled myself in two years ago, like an idiot. Nice one, Jess!
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Tourists Upset Morocco Barbary Macaque Monkeys
The most innocuous interactions with tourists can upset endangered Barbary macaques, say scientists.
A study revealed that macaques at a site regularly visited by tourists showed signs of anxiety when people got too close, fed them or tried to attract their attention for a photograph.
The scientists monitored the monkeys’ behaviour and also tested the animals’ droppings for stress...
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Happy Orangutans Live Longer
Happier orangutans are more likely to live for longer, according to a study.
A team of researchers in the UK and US devised a method to measure the happiness, or subjective well-being, of captive orangutans.
In a follow-up study seven years later, the scientists found that happier primates were much more likely still to be alive.
The findings are published in the Royal Society journal...
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Noise Found To Make Monkeys Lose Appetite
Unlike us, monkeys don’t have earplugs for tuning out the din of city life, so instead they relocate to the quietest parts of their habitat - often at the expense of a full belly, a new study finds.
The study showed that marmoset monkeys living in a park in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte avoided the noisiest areas of the park, including places that had the most food.
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Chimpanzee's Pre-meditated Attack
The apes of Bossou, Guinea, have been studied for a quarter of a century by Tetsuro Matsuzawa, head of the Primate Research Institute in Inuyama, Japan.
At a field station in Bossou, Matsuzawa and his colleagues have noted remarkable similarities between humans and our primate cousins. These apes regularly make and use tools. They manipulate twigs or grass to scoop up algae and ants, use...
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Chimps Used in Medical Research Show Signs of...
Chimpanzees who’ve been subjected to invasive laboratory experiments show signs of Post-Traumatic Stress (PTSD) and other psychiatric disorders seen in traumatized humans, according to a new study by animal welfare activists.
About 1,000 chimpanzees currently live in private and government-run laboratory facilities across the United States, where they are used as subjects for medical...
