Primatology.net

Remember when, I asked y’all about great ape human rights, and brought up how Austrian courts will judge on it earlier this month?

I’ve been keeping track of this news, and caught a News @ Nature piece titled, “Chimp denied a legal guardian,” which reports that,

“An Austrian judge turned down a request this week to appoint a woman as legal guardian of a chimpanzee.”

I bet you are confused, as I was initially reading this opening line. After the post I shared with you earlier this month, I was under the impression that Austrian judges would be deciding something more theoretical than an actually case of guardianship. The article clarifies the situation,

“…Association Against Animal Factories (VGT) earlier this year went to court in an attempt to name a legal guardian for Hiasl (pronounced Hee-sel), who was taken in 1982 from western Africa with several other young chimps. The chimps were to be shipped to a research laboratory, but did not have proper documentation and were intercepted by customs officials, according to Martin Balluch, president of the VGT. Two of them, Hiasl and Rosi, ended up at the Vienna Animal Protection Shelter.

Balluch says they are worried that the shelter may no longer be able to afford to keep Hiasl and Rosi, and his group wants to ensure the chimps do not end up in a zoo or a laboratory. “If they are sent outside of Austria, then anything could happen to them,” he says.

The VGT decided the best strategy was to seek a legal guardian for Hiasl, and then, if they won, use that as legal precedent to appoint a legal guardian for Rosi and other chimps in Austria, Balluch says.

In the lawsuit, Paula Stibbe, a UK citizen living in Austria and in regular contact with Hiasl since 1999, was put forward to be Hiasl’s guardian. Stibbe, who still visits Hiasl regularly, says: “I consider him a friend. He greets me with kisses, hugs.”"

After reading about the details of the case, I’m a bit let down Hiasl didn’t get granted a legal guardian to preside over him because both Paula & Balluch seem to be truly invested in the welfare of him. But the judge ruled to not support legal guardianship of the chimp because she was worried her ruling may ‘create the public perception that humans with court-appointed legal guardians are at the same level as animals,’ which is generally the opinion I expressed before. Paula can still protect Hiasl.

The article goes on to discuss how this ruling carries out into the larger debate about primate rights.

But don’t let my bias sway your own personal opinion on the issue. Please check out the organization called the Great Ape Project, the one that is driving forward this global discussion on primate rights… and decide for yourself with this tricky moral issue.

The Mountain Gorilla, Gorilla beringei beringei, is the primate comeback kid.

I previously shared news with you that their population has been making a rebound. Since then, The Times has published a news article on this topic. (Thanks, Paulin!) Before we get into it, I wanted to say that I haven’t noticed any US news sources report on this, which is disheartening. But anyways, I won’t let that get me down. It’s not often good news like this comes around. Suffice to say, I’m pretty ecstatic to tell you that mountain gorilla populations have,

“been boosted by 12 per cent over the last decade in Uganda…

Mountain gorillas, Gorilla beringei beringei, are one of the most threatened animals in the world, with only 720 left in the wild after years of decline in the face of hunting by humans and habitat loss.

In Bwindi, in southwest Uganda, where they live in a national park, genetic analysis of stools revealed that the population had risen by 40 to 340 in ten years.”

The article goes on to write how this has broke down to be an average increase of 1%, which is a steady increase indicating a healthy, thriving, and well-protected population. But that doesn’t mean the conservation effort for these primates is all done and good now. A population of under 1,000 individuals is still critically endangered.

A lot can still be done to improve their comeback into a full blown population rebound. One thing that comes to mind is to control your cell phone purchases. I know it sounds unrelated, but cell phone manufacturing has a tie-in with gorilla habitats. Another factor to keep in mind goes out to you eco-tourists. Don’t visit the gorillas if you are sick. They are capable of getting our infectious agents, and actually are even more susceptible, because they do not have the acquired immune resistance we do.

In chimpanzee communities, it pays to be close with your maternal brethren, according to a brand new publication in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The large chimpanzee population at Ngogo in Kibale National Park, Uganda, was studied for this research paper both thru behavioral and molecular approaches. I’m assuming the molecular techniques were used to trace pedigrees and lineages.

The specific scope of the research was to assess the kinship relations among male chimpanzees in this population. From the abstract of paper, the research,

“show[s] that male chimpanzees clearly prefer to affiliate and cooperate with their maternal brothers in several behavioral contexts. Despite these results, additional analyses reveal that the impact of kinship is limited; paternal brothers do not selectively affiliate and cooperate, probably because they cannot be reliably recognized, and the majority of highly affiliative and cooperative dyads are actually unrelated or distantly related. These findings add to a growing body of research that indicates that animals cooperate with each other to obtain both direct and indirect fitness benefits and that complex cooperation can occur between kin and nonkin alike.”

What does that mean? We already knew chimpanzee social structure is highly maternal and usually dominant mother chimps raise dominant sons. Well this research adds to this, indicating that sons, or ‘princes’ if you may, establish a network to dominate hierarchy over the population they preside… sorta like a chimpanzee royalty.

I’m a bit uncertain about the statement on how paternal brothers can’t identify one another… On one level, this seems logical. Its very improbable to know “who your daddy is” in a chimpanzee troop. But, a chimpanzee intimately knows his or her mother, because she reared him or her. However chimpanzees have a very high intellectual capacity, and I’m thinking they know at some level who fathered them. I won’t be willing to bet my life savings, but it is very probable.

If you would like to read more about the article, please check it out under this title and link, “The limited impact of kinship on cooperation in wild chimpanzees.” One last note, I’m not surprised this fieldwork & molecular 1,2 combo came from the primatological powerhouse that is Max Planck Institute’s department for Evolutionary Anthropology, are you?

I was contacted by organizers of Chautauqua to help spread the word that Jane Goodall will be speaking at the event on July 6th, 2007 at 10:45 am. You should thank me because I had to scour the event webpage and as well as the Chautauqua webpage to find the exact date and time.

What is Chautauqua, you ask? In my university, a yearly Chautauqua was held mostly in celebration of the arts. Lots of students would put on plays and display their artwork. But the Chautauqua that Jane Goodall will be speaking at is larger than that. It is a larger movement that brings entertainment, education and culture for the larger community. Each day of the Chautauqua event is highlighted with with speakers, teachers, musicians, entertainers, preachers, and specialists.

I’m waiting to hear back from the organizers that contacted me about what Jane Goodall will be speaking about, but the week’s theme is family oriented and titled, “All of a Kind? All Different?” Which somehow Jane Goodall will correlate to primate conservation.

If you are interested in attending the event will be held on July 6th, 2007. Jane Goodall will speak at 10:45am. You can find more information about the hotel this event is taking place over here, and if you want to see the rest of the calendar of events check out this PDF.

The most important part, aside from Jane Goodall speaking, is that if you wanna see her speak for one day you have to buy the one week pass. That’s what I’m gathering, cause I don’t see any day passes… and that will cost you $310! Please correct me if I am wrong.

A new public database has been released that overviews the status of endangered and almost extinct animals. I feel like it is a critical and timely resource, especially in regards to primate conservation efforts.

The project is called EDGE, and currently lemurs are at the top of the most critically endangered primates on that list, and sadly almost every species of lemur that I know frequent that list. Most of the animals represented on the list are small mammals, many rodents, for example. The mountain monkey of South America has made the list, and at 97 on the list of the most critically endangered is the orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus).

In other conservation news, I’m happy to report that the World Wildlife Fund has issued a statement on the rebound of mountain gorillas, in east Africa. They are,

“making a slow but steady comeback due to a decade of conservation efforts to counter the impact of war and poaching…

…There are now 340 in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, which is home to nearly half the world’s mountain gorillas, the global conservation group said.

That is a 12 percent growth over the past decade.”

Pretty awesome news, and I must tip my hat off to Paulin and his team, who run the blog Gorilla Protection. Let me remind you they broke the news of the two silverback males slaughtered recently. Their reports come straight from the field, and provide us with a tangible connection to the conservation effort of gorillas. If you don’t visit regularly, please do. Make sure you check out their video of a 2-day old gorilla as well as all their wonderful photos.

Last thing, Science has published some reports that came out from this year’s meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. One of the reports, related to gorillas, is a study of,

“the nuclear DNA from the two species of wild gorillas indicates that they diverged slowly into two species, apparently taking the better part of a million years.”

Since we were talking about genome comparisons this week, I thought you maybe interested in keeping track of more primate genome related science. Check out the report, here.

A new study has changed the lives of seven mandrills for the better at England’s Chester Zoo. With the help of zoo staff, Durham University researchers found that placing shrubs between the glass enclosure and the visitor’s area reduced stress levels (as seen through aberrant behaviors) and increased natural behaviors.

Examples provided:

• approaching the glass
  • 54% decrease

• climbing and eating
  • 13% increase

• playing and grooming each other
  • 16% increase

Dr. Jan de Ruiter, Department of Anthropology, Durham University:

“We initially found some levels of stress among the mandrills. Their behaviour showed signs of anxiety and social tension. Visitors can further aggravate this stress as some people interpret the mandrills’ behaviour as amusing and start mimicking them.”

“As soon as the shrubs were positioned, we noticed an immediate improvement in the welfare of the mandrills, who displayed significantly less anti social behaviour. The botanical display also adds to the visitor experience as they gain a more natural impression of the type of environment in which the mandrills would be living in the wild in Africa.”

Makes sense doesn’t it?

As for visitors further aggravating the stress… as I’m sure many of us can, I can certainly vouch for that. Spending months observing behavior in the Monkey House at the Bronx Zoo, opened my eyes to the insensitivity of some individuals who feel it is acceptable to bang on the glass enclosure, yell at the animals, and egg them on in an infinite number of ways. While shrubbery won’t stop some people from being themselves, it sounds like it’s successfully keeping the distance and making life a little calmer for the mandrills. Excellent news.

Dr. Sonya Hill, Research Officer at Chester Zoo:

“This study shows that by measuring the behaviour of animals in their habitats, whether they be in the wild or in a zoo, we can understand their needs and preferences better. In this way, researchers can ‘ask’ the animals what they want. Zoos can then provide enclosures that aim to meet these needs and maintain good animal welfare. It is important to remember that life in the wild is not stress-free either, with factors such as predation, competition for food, and disease or injury, and as we learn more about each species we can understand what behavioural strategies they use to cope with their environment.”

The effort of the researchers has been recognized by UFAW (Universities Federation for Animal Welfare) and honored with the Wild Animal Welfare Award. The money awarded will be used for further animal welfare research at Chester Zoo.

In almost one year of blogging here, we haven’t yet covered how the study of biophysics intersects with primatology. (Update: I realized I kinda lied, I forgot about this post on gibbon gait. Oops.)

Biophysics, in a sense, is the study of the form and function of bodies, and is formally defined as the application of the laws of physics to life processes. The ways a primate body plan is structured dictate some of the primary functions and forms of mobility. For example, humans have very robust lower-limb skeletal structures. From really dense femurs, to joints heavily padded with cartilage, our lower limbs are made to take a beating. This feature in our bodies, correlate to how we move about — bipedally.

A new study, published in Biology Letters, studies how orangutans use the sway of branches to propel themselves from tree to tree. They already have longer arms than legs, a useful adaptation to reach from branch to branch. Also their lower limbs are as flexible as our upper ones (if not more)… Isn’t that crazy?

Swaying, as their primary form of movement is way more energetically cost effective than climbing down one tree and up the next and interestingly is seen in only Sumatran orangutans. According to a Nature news report on this study,

“These are the only primates known to live exclusively in the tree canopy, in part because of the Sumatran tiger and other predators that await them on the ground.”

Pretty, interesting tangent between this form of movement and the ecological context the orangutans live in, if you ask me.

The authors of the paper used video footage of Sumatran orangutans in movement to calculate the energy orangutans use in swings, by estimating the weight, mass, and angles observed in the films and plugging them into some classical torque equations.

After all these calculations, another interesting observation was made, about orangutans selecting for ‘stronger vertical branches nearer the tree trunk,’ so that they are less likely to snap under the weight of these big guys.

If you are interested in this publication, it’s published under this title and link, “Orangutans use compliant branches to lower the energetic cost of locomotion.”

When I first saw this beautiful image of geladas, I thought it was two males mourning a dead comrade. But after reading the caption, boy was I ever wrong. What’s happening here is grooming. I wanted to share this photo with you because grooming is one of the most common behavioral features between all primates, and has made us all into the highly social organisms we are.

© iStockphoto/IMPALASTOCK

From Scientific American’s Photo Gallery,

“Like other intelligent, highly social primates, baboon courtship can take many different forms. In hamadryas baboons, for instance, males will maintain harems of multiple females which they will jealously guard—and which will occasionally be raided by other males. Males of other baboon species sometimes take a different tack: by “befriending” a female through attentive companionship and grooming (the primate equivalent of sparkling conversation) they may eventually be chosen as mates by those females.”

…Or rather why did Mark interpret this information that way? I know, I know, rhetorical question, to some extent. I don’t think that we are yet at a stage of comparing genetic sequences to say one organism is more evolved than the other. But Mark Henderson, ‘Science Editor’ of the newspaper The Times, seems to think we can.

He and the editors that allowed this article to be titled, “Chimps are ahead of humans in the great evolutionary race.”

And I think he’s wrong.

Either he was mislead, confused, or was unprepared to fully interpret and report this news. Why you ask? Because, he summarizes, that a new,

“...Comparison of the genomes of the two [humans & chimpanzees] has revealed that many more chimp genes than human ones have been the subject of positive evolutionary selection….

….Chimpanzees have evolved more extensively than humans since the two species split from their common ancestors.

[And this refutes the] anthropocentric view that a grand enhancement in Darwinian selection underlies human origins.”

This conclusion is horribly misleading, and I want to clarify that the number of genes that have been positively selected for, is not the primary mode for evolutionary change. Positive selection sometimes manifests itself in copy number variations, or genes within a genome that have been repeated in order to increase the frequency that transcript will be made. That is what the authors of the original paper compared. But, it is where these changes, duplications for example, are made that ultimately facilitate evolutionary change.

If you are still a bit confused let me try and make a more descriptive explanation. The best analogy that I can come up with right now is that a chimp could have 200 pennies in its hand. That’s $2.00. Some would consider me a human, and I would conversely have 20 dimes in my hand, but that’s also $2.00. The same concept applies with the number of positive selection features within a genome. It’s not how many positive selection artifacts one has, but what one has and where is it in a genome.

In another light, chimps have evolved in a much different time frame and continue to evolve in a much different environment, compared to humans. Different selective pressures may affect more genes being modified in a chimpanzee genome, than one in a human one because we are fundamentally different when looked down to the chromosomal level. So how could we fully compare something like this?

What is so ironic, is that Henderson goes to quote the authors of the paper he is reporting on,

“The study… underlines that evolution is not a matter of progress towards a goal, and that it is incorrect to assume that more intelligent species are “more evolved”.”

So why has he and the editors of The Times published the article with the title that chimps are winning this evolutionary race?

I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows really. There’s no race! If anyone is ‘winning the evolutionary race’ it is humans, we are unfortunately decimating chimpanzees. But enough ranting. I will hold out to see what the official publication concludes, once its out. All I know is that it will be published in PNAS under the title and link, “More genes underwent positive selection in chimpanzee evolution than in human evolution.”

If you wanna read more about genomic comparisons between humans and other papers, I’ve written a lot about recent papers that discussed this topic. It should be noted that in these recent papers, different conclusions were made from the ones that Henderson is reporting on. So that maybe of interest to you. Here’s a list of links:

• Mapping out recent evolution on the human genome.
• A new study of copy number variation in chimpanzee genome.
• The contribution of Copy Number Variations (CNV) to human genetic variation.
• Identifying the characteristics of the Fastest Evolving Regions of the Human Genome.

Oh yes, how could we have a discussion of genome comparisons of primates without linking up John Hawks? He also writes about positive selection in human-chimpanzee genome comparisons.

Read the rest of this entry »

A new genus and three species of primate have been announced at last month’s annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, and we just got news of it via Science Daily. The announcement has come by way of Jim Westgate, a professor of earth and space sciences at Lamar University and also research associate in the Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory, Texas Natural Science Center, University of Texas-Austin. Pretty impressive breadth of disciplines for a paleoprimatologist, no?

Westgate and his team of colleagues recovered a molar, pre-molar and incisor teeth from the new primate genus and three other new primate species. The fossils were found in a,

“42 million-year-old tropical, mangrove palm swamp deposits of the Eocene age Laredo Formation exposed in Lake Casa Blanca International State Park in Laredo.”

The primates are Omoyids, members of the extinct family Omomyidae, which resemble tarsiers in form. The binomial names for these extinct primates haven’t been formally released, but I think they will be called Paralomys. The Science Daily article describes Omoyids a bit more artistically,

“Omomyids had large eye orbits, long grasping fingers and short snouts. They weighed around one kilogram, or close to two pounds and were likely nocturnal, with large eyes for seeing better at night. Like most modern-day primates, the omomyids used their long fingers for climbing. They had small mouths, and it is likely that insects were a part of their regular diet.”

Aside from ascribing a new genus, this finding is significant because it shows how four species of primates lived on the Texas coast line about 42 million years ago. This gives us an insight to the ecosystem of that era, and how it changed upon the time the Rocky Mountains were raised.

I don’t have much else to run off of this press release, other than the information I just conveyed back to you, But Westgate was quoted to say that,

“formal name of the new genus, which means “primate of the coastal lagoons” [Paralomys], will be released at publication time.”

UPDATE: Betsy had already posted this news, a while back. I forgot to double check when I posted this, so be sure to check out what Betsy wrote as well, here.