A quick summary of everything that occurs in the world of primates.
November 29, 1961 - Enos Space Chimp
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Today in 1961, a chimpanzee named Enos was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft. See the video by clicking on the link below.
Cheek pouches are pockets between the jaw and the cheek used to temporarily store food. Many rodents, marsupials and monkeys have them. Apes and New World monkeys do not have cheek pouches. Old World monkeys have cheek pouches but do not use them with the same frequency. For instance, baboons in the wild don't seem to use their cheek pouches as much as they do in captivity. It was long believed that cheek pouches were the result of an adaptation to ground foraging, to store food in high risk situation while on the ground and consume it later high in a tree, however Ciochon and Feagle argue that cercopithecines who live mostly arboreal have the largest cheek pouches. ( Primate Evolution and Human Origins ). Unlike those of rodents, primates' cheek pouches secrete large quantities of amylase - which converts starches into sugar. In her book " Primate Behavioral Ecology ", Karen Strier writes: " this adaptation for digesting unrip fruits, which are o...
Humans and great apes seem to be the only creatures deprived of a tail. Yet, our coccyx is what scientists call a “vestigial” organ. It doesn’t serve any purpose but it is there. As Darwin writes in his Origin of Species: “Rudimentary organs may be compared with the letters in a word, still retained in the spelling, but become useless in the pronunciation, but which serve as a clue for its derivation.” In short, the fact we don’t have a tail doesn’t exclude the possibility that one of our distant ancestors had one. So, what is a tail for? For some, it is a built-in fly swatter – like cows in the field; for others a navigation tool like fish; for many a means to keep their balance and for others a way to communicate. When you come home, I am sure your dog greets you by jumping around with vigorous tail wagging – that is, if you are lucky enough to have one. Scientists at the University of Bari, Italy, have been studying tail wagging and its meaning for quite some time. The res...
How we treat great apes (and other animals for that matter) is a question that has been gaining momentum the last few years. Organizations like The Non-Human Rights Project argue that a legal status, other than that of "property" should be granted to great apes in particular. I could not agree more. Animals are not objects and should not be considered as such by the law, no matter which country they live in. We do know that animals (from mice to apes) have feelings and experience empathy ** (see references below) - so how can we justify trading them as mere junk? The question is even more pertinent when it comes to the ethical treatment of great apes in facilities using them for the greater good - (think medical research). Progress has been made and it seems that we (humans) are now moving towards a consensus that medical research should move away from animal testing where other solutions apply. However, some argue that computer simulation, in vitro testing cann...
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