Contagious Yawning in Chimpanzees
Animation of chimpanzee yawning from Emory University. Illustration from BBC News. I’m sure we are all familiar with this scenario: …
Tag Archives: primate evolution
The Fongoli Chimps of Senegal
A Fongoli chimp. Photo by Frans Lanting, National Geographic. I just stumbled upon this on Twitter (Thanks to DarwinMonkey). It’s …
Humans Evolved From Tree Climbers
A research from Duke University by Daniel Schmitt, associate professor of evolutionary anthropology, and Tracy Kivell, a post-doctoral research associate, …
New Branch of Archaeology: Paleoanthropology Meets Primatology
A chimpanzee mother using rocks (hammer and anvil) to break open nuts, an example of tool use in primates. Photo …
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 …
Non-Human Primate Tool Use: Gorillas Wielding Weapons, Macaques & Mirror Neurons
I’m scouring the American Journal of Primatology for a paper on gorillas using tools as weapons in the wild. National …
Gorilla Genetic Diversification due to Ice Age and Climate Change
PNAS will soon publish a paper from Mike Bruford and colleagues who isolated DNA from gorilla hair and feces and …
Nakalipithecus nakayamai, a Miocene Ape from Kenya
The collective understanding of Miocene African primate evolution, especially ape evolution, is generally unfounded. Why? Because the fossil record is …
Chimpanzee Rationality
Michael Tomasello, one of the biggest and best primatologists out there, recently published a paper in Science on chimpanzee rationality. …
