I have had the pleasure of working with Tierra Wilson for a couple years at the Gorilla Foundation. Since then, she’s moved off to veterinary school and I to graduate school. We’ve kept in touch and I was elated to hear that she’s going to Rwanda earlier this summer to study the mountain gorillas there. [...]
August 6, 2008
A Massive Population Of Gorillas In The Congo Discovered, But 48% Of Primates Are At Risk Of Extinction
I have some bittersweet news to share with you. If you’re a regular reader of this site, you may know that gorilla populations have been reported as severely endangered. Most of the problems stem from deforestation and poverty. People chop down trees in Africa and ultimately ruin the ecosystems that support these great apes for [...]
July 24, 2008
Blue Monkeys From Uganda Increase Frequency Of Alarm Calls If Others Are In Danger
Klaus Zuberbühler and team published his report of blue monkey vocalizations in the Royal Society’s journal Biology Letters. The paper is titled, “Male blue monkeys alarm call in response to danger experienced by others.” I don’t have access to the journal, nor am I willing to pay $50 for the privileged to read it. If [...]
July 21, 2008
Current Biology Covers The 60th Anniversary Of The Founding of Primatology in Japan
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of primatology in Japan, thanks to the works of Kinji Imanishi. Current Biology hosts an essay by Tetsuro Matsuzawa and William McGrew, which reviews Imanishi’s contributions to the field. The essay can be found at this link, “Kinji Imanishi and 60 years of Japanese primatology.”
I’m not [...]
July 15, 2008
Charlie Rose’s Talk On Gorilla Murders In Virunga National Park
Charlie Rose interviewed Emmanuel de Merode of WildLifeDirect, Brent Stirton and Godefroid Wambale four days ago — three men who know about the massacre of gorillas that happened last year in Virunga National Park. Their interview covers their account of the day where six gorillas were killed.
I’m very pleased with this interview, and even more [...]
July 9, 2008
The Big Brains of Primates Evolved Twice & Idependently Of One Another
John Flynn, André Wyss, John Finarelli, and Karen Sears have been studying the brains of the ancestors of modern Neotropical primates and their early Old World fossil simian counterparts. They were able to determine that the brains of platyrrhines of the Americas were as small as those of the catarrhines of Africa and Eurasia, which [...]
July 8, 2008
Come to Doc’s Clock On Wednesday Night to Raise Money for Infant Gorillas
I used to work at the Gorilla Foundation, and am still on their organizational mailing list. This weekend they sent me an email announcing a fundraiser they setup for the Mefou Sanctuary in Cameroon on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008. Specifically the event is setup to raise money for their infant gorilla nursery.
The event will be [...]
July 7, 2008
Orangutans Are Shockingly Closer To Extinction
Anthropology.net blogger German Dziebel sent me this link about the dim future of orangutans in Indonesia, Brunei, and Malaysia. Afarensis has also covered this news. The results of a new survey of orangutan populations have been published in the journal Oryx. I don’t have access to the early advance view of the paper, but [...]
May 5, 2008
Video Clips of JJ from Bossou, Guinea fishing for tools
I just posted about JJ’s novel tool use, and I thought you may wanna see him actually fishing for ants. The authors of the paper provided videos of JJ using his tools. I’ve uploaded it to YouTube for your viewing pleasure.
