We ain’t monkeyin’ around here.
A study was published several days ago in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B examining the social relationships among 13 mountain gorilla groups in Rwadna over 12 years. Typically, mountain gorillas have social groups of 12 to 20 individuals. A group of this size often yields the most diversity in relationships. Mountain gorillas... Continue Reading →
Zoë Goldsborough, of Utrecht University, and crew have published an open access special feature in the journal Primates. Their paper documents the observation of chimpanzees consoling a bereaving chimpanzee mother who experienced a still birth. This is a fantastic study that builds on our prior knowledge that chimpanzees do mourn the death of a group member... Continue Reading →
Check out this video of a monkey teaching a human how to crush a leaf.
Researchers from Oxford University, working in Brazil, found new archaeological evidence suggests that Brazilian capuchins have been using stone tools to crack open cashew nuts for at least 700 years. Researchers say, to date, they have found the earliest archaeological examples of monkey tool use outside of Africa. In their paper, published in Current Biology,... Continue Reading →
In the above video you will see a large male chimp approaching a tree. He pauses for a second, then glances around, grabs a huge rock and flings it full force at the tree trunk. We have known about this. Prior studies have shown or provided anecdotes of wild chimpanzees throwing and banging stones in... Continue Reading →
Many animals, including chimpanzees and bonobos, have food related calls... But aside from anecdotal reports, there was no evidence of this behavior in gorillas, until now. A new paper in PLoS One documents that the wild western lowland gorillas in the Republic of the Congo sing and hum when eating, as a way to express... Continue Reading →
Footage filmed for a new BBC series 'Gorilla Family & Me' reveals what goes on after dark. A family of endangered gorillas are led into the trees by a silverback known as Chimanuka. The clips capture them making and settling in their nests in and around a tree, the first ever film of this behavior... And at... Continue Reading →
Katie Slocombe from the University of York observed that before integrating the two different groups of chimpanzees, each produced different grunts for "apple," and after the integration, she noted that the new group members adapted their grunts to the ones produced by the chimpanzees already living there, “Three years after the integration, the grunt calls of... Continue Reading →
Maggie Koerth-Baker, senior writer for Boing Boing, recently wrote an article in the New York Times reviewing the behaviors of chimpanzees around mortality. She retells the death of a chimpanzee named Pansy, who died in captivity, at the Blair Drummond Safari and Adventure Park in Scotland, about 5 years ago. The death was imminent. Many... Continue Reading →
Eva Maria Luëf and Katja Liebal of the Free University of Berlin have published in the American Journal of Primatology a new paper documenting the occurrence of motheresein 24 captive lowland gorillas. During a 4 month observation of these gorillas, it was observed that elder gorillas used different gestures to start and stop play. To... Continue Reading →
