Archive for January 2007
Variation in brain size and ecology in Orangutans
John Hawks expands on a paper that I introduced several months ago. The paper has been online for a while but has appeared in the January 2007 edition of the Journal of Human Evolution, it is titled, “Variation in brain size and ecology in Pongo.” Hawks briefly criticizes a flaw in the experimental setup of the paper, specifically about comparing the brain sizes between populations of orangs,
“Well, not exactly, since a relatively faster development might still be slowed in the resource-stress environment. The real test would be to compare the two subspecies in captivity where they presumably have similar (and sufficient) diets.”
He continues on a discussion about his thoughts about how,
“high diet quality under resource stress requires a larger (i.e. smarter) brain, while a sacrifice of diet quality with dependence on low-energy fallback foods selects for a smaller (i.e., lower energy cost) brain.”
And ties it to the Homo floresiensis debacle. It’s a quick and interesting read about how environment influences bodies, population, and ultimately evolution of primates.
Video of Goualogou Triangle Chimps, Undisturbed by Humans
I wanna welcome the new year with some good news regarding chimpanzee conservation coming from Republic of Congo. Specifically the Goualogou River meets up with the Ndoki River to form a natural boundary called the Goualogou triangle. Within this triangle is a population of chimpanzees that have never before been contacted by human beings.
This is good news considering how the Ebola virus is decimating populations of great apes, as well as deforestation. The link to the video down below shows how several conservationists are learning all they can about these “naive” chimps. It is pretty interesting, not only are there chimps who have never seen humans but also gorillas… which is promising to me.
Dave Morgan and Crickette Sanz, of the World Wildlife Fund have been working on studying the chimps since 1999. Richard Molungo has helped survey the area for the WWF. In combination, the work of these people and Mike Fay and Paul Elkin, also of the WWF, have helped conserve the land from a timber company, CIB.
The following video, from “Wild Chronicles” of PBS shows some highlights from this excellent news: “Naive” Chimps Live Undisturbed by Humans.
