We ain’t monkeyin’ around here.
(Photo courtesy of Bristol Zoo Gardens) With a little help from clomifene (a drug that women have been using to aid in ovulation), Salome, a western lowland gorilla, carried a baby to term and gave birth on December 15th. The 30-year-old gorilla from the Bristol Zoo was mating, just not successfully conceiving. Veterinarians reported that... Continue Reading →
Six out of 21 monkeys in the Shirakami Mountains tested positive for B virus according to the Daily Yomiuri. In a statement issued by Kazutaka Osawa of Nagasaki University, the infected monkeys (between 3 and 13 years old) were captured near residential areas between July and November. The transfer of the disease to humans usually... Continue Reading →
Today’s interesting press release from the University of St Andrews calls attention to a paper on the singing behavior of gibbons as a mechanism to ward off predators in addition to mating practices. Esther Clarke, Klaus Zuberbuhler, both of the University of St Andrews and Ulrich Reichard, of the Max Planck Institute observed the singing... Continue Reading →
Fifty years is all it would take to destroy two-thirds of the forests in the Congo River Basin. Currently, about 3.7 million acres of forest each year is lost to logging, agriculture, and road development (among other things). In a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report, Laurent Somé, WWF's Central African Regional Office Director, briefly touches... Continue Reading →
Soon the Baktikop forest will have few more inhabitants. According to Willie Smith, founder of BOS (Borneo Orangutan Survival) Foundation (as reported in ANTARA News), the Forestry Ministry will allow for about 200 orangutans to be released to the protected Baktikop forest in early 2007. The Nyaru Menteng Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Center in Central Kalimantan... Continue Reading →
In a recent Current Biology article, “Male Chimpanzees Prefer Mating with Old Females,” Muller, Thompson, and Wrangham report on the sexual attraction of males to females in the Kanyawara chimpanzee community in Kibale National Park, Uganda. The authors indicate that female chimpanzee mothers become more sexually attractive with age. A concept that is contrary to... Continue Reading →
