Scoop on Primates

In my last post I talked about primates making art.  Today, I want to talk about primates featured in artwork and how different cultures perceived (and maybe still do) perceive primates. There is no shortage of paintings featuring primates and many come to mind. They tell us about our history.  The painting below by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) depicts Prince Edward of Wales with a monkey.  The monkey is not represented realistically.  It has a striped tail, similar to that of ring-tailed lemurs and ears we often see in mythical creatures found in Gothic art, possibly ears of a dragon.  It was customary for foreign dignitaries to offer exotic animals to European royalty, so it is possible that the prince possessed a monkey at one time. In his book "Henry VIII: the king, his six wives and his court", Nick Ford specifies that the monkey the prince is holding is a guenon "which signifies wealth and exotic taste". Kuntsmuseum collection, Basel, Swit...

I wanted to share this video of Panbanisha, a bonobo at the Great Ape Trust, who paints. I also wanted to show her here because I have not included a lot of news about bonobos, so I wanted to make up for it. The Forgotten Ape, as Frans de Waal calls the bonobo, could be considered the "hippie" of the ape community.  Just like chimps, bonobos are "cousins"of ours.  Unlike chimps though, they prefer to solve their issues with physical promiscuity and love - this is one of the reasons we rarely see them in documentaries on television.   Quite reminiscent of the Janet Jackson wardrobe incident, isn't it?  Violence and foul language are OK on TV, but a boob sneak peek is not... but  I digress. Watch Panbanisha paint.  Quite amazing! If you are curious about bonobos, check the Friends of Bonobos organization, o r visit the Bonobo Conservation Initiative .