Primates // Current TV

Threatened monkey populations surprisingly large

A new census in Cambodia reveals remarkably large populations of two monkey species... more

khromadjo
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Race against time to save Congo's apes

Given the genocidal record of Belgium's King Leopold II in the Congo towards the... more

goldenways
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Monkeys find giving rewarding

A new study is suggesting that animals can be altruistic, after it found that monkeys... more

purplefox
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3 years ago
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Gorilla undergoes professional dentist treatment

Pertinax, a silverback Western gorilla weighing 28 st, had to be sedated for two hours... more

JanaPokana
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3 years ago
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Sexy gibbons are waking up the neighbors

With the "beautiful and melodic symphony" that is the gibbons mating ritual.... more

phillyharper
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3 years ago
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Gorilla Protection

Gorilla Silverback Filmed at Gatovu! "This is Innocent. Yesterday I got a call... more

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Protect Gorillas From Deforestation!

PLEASE sign, forward & X-POST this petition. Protect Gorillas From... more

julesrs007
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3 years ago
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Driving primates to the edge

Are primates and monkeys sending us the message: if we're dying out, so will you?

gumulder
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3 years ago
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125,000 gorillas found in African zone

Wildlife researchers said Tuesday that they've discovered 125,000 western lowland... more

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3 years ago
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Half of all primate species face extinction

A new study warns that 48% of the world's primates species face extinction.... more

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Orangutan drowns in German zoo

A 10-year-old Orangutan is reported to have drowned in a moat at Hmaburg zoo. It... more

rwylie
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Treeshrews spend their lives drinking palm beer but they never have a hangover. The amount of alcohol they sip would cause drunkenness if a human drank the equivalent, and yet they stay as sober as judges...

"Alcohol use and abuse can no longer be blamed on the inventors of brewing of about 9,000 years ago. So far, the current theories on alcoholism have stated that mankind and its ancestors were either used to take no alcohol at all or maybe only low doses via fruits - before the onset of beer brewing. As brewing is such a recent event on the evolutionary time scale, we were not able to develop an adequate defence against the adverse effects of alcohol and the partly hereditary addiction. Mankind is suffering from an evolutionary hangover, as they say.

Contrary to this belief, chronic high consumption of alcohol already occurred early on in primate evolution according to an international team of scientists from Germany, Canada, Luxemburg, Switzerland, and Malaysia: 'Alcohol consuming treeshrews are not real shrews. In fact, they belong to the primates' closest living relatives and are ecologically and behaviourally comparable to their extinct ancestors that lived more than 55 million years ago. Studying these fascinating creatures is an unexpected golden opportunity to learn about the causes and consequences of real-life drinking.'

Neither tipsy nor tame, the wild pentailed treeshrew Ptilocercus lowii from the West-Malaysian rainforest spends its nights looking for and licking fermented nectar of the bertam palm.

The alcohol consumption of treeshrews and their drinking companions - six other mammal species are also "regulars" - is therefore chronic and could already have been established over 55 million years ago.

As drunkenness is extremely dangerous for small mammals with plenty of lurking predators around, drinking to intoxication does not make sense. Still, the team showed that the pentailed treeshrew takes in alcohol at a rate dangerous to other mammals. They drink nectar for more than two hours each night but they do not show any motion coordination problems or other signs of being drunk. Compared to human standards, pentailed treeshrews would be drunk once in every three nights."

Picture: http://flickr.com/photos/glenneroo/155458585/sizes/l/Treeshrews spend their lives drinking palm beer but they never have a hangover. The... more

saverio
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3 years ago
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Newly discovered monkey is threatened with extinction

Just three years after it was discovered, a new species of monkey is threatened with... more

twentytwo
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3 years ago
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Virunga Gorillas: How to Help

PHOTO: An orphaned gorilla curls up with her caregiver. After the July 2007... more

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3 years ago
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Gorillas Executed in Congo Park -- National Geographic

Background history of the 'Gorilla Murders' - VIDEO... more

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3 years ago
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Mountain Gorillas in Peril - 'The Silent Killer'

Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project: http://www.mgvp.org/ Dr. Lucy's Blog - Susa... more

julesrs007
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3 years ago
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Mountain Gorilla Conservation

Help Protect Mountain Gorillas In a 40-50 year lifetime, a female mountain gorilla... more

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3 years ago
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Monkeys understand money

Capuchins can appreciate the purchasing power of tokens such as poker chips.

Capuchin monkeys can use tokens to 'buy' their favourite food, and can decide whether to trade for one piece of tasty food, or many pieces of a less appetizing snack.

An experiment, led by Elsa Addessi at the CNR, the Italian National Research Council, in Rome, Italy, shows that capuchins, like us, can understand the symbolic value of an otherwise mundane object.

Previous studies have focused on similar skills in great apes such as chimpanzees. But this is among the first to assess symbolic reasoning in a species so distantly related to ourselves.

Addessi and her colleagues trained the capuchins to associate valueless tokens of different shapes and sizes with specific foods. A poker chip, for example, could have been used to represent dried apricot, and brass hooks could have represented parmesan cheese.

Then the monkeys were presented with a choice of two trays, each containing a piece, or pieces, of one of three different foods, labelled A, B and C. The foods were selected, according to the established tastes of the individual monkeys, so that A was nicer than B, which was nicer than C.

In the test with real food, the monkeys chose one piece of A over two pieces of B; and would choose one piece of B over two pieces of C. And the effect continued so that they might chose one piece of A, their favourite food, over four pieces of less tempting C.

But the monkeys behaved differently with real food and with tokens. This was apparent when the monkeys had to decide whether a large amount of a less-tasty food would be better than a single piece of their favourite food. In both tests there came a point when lots of B, or B tokens, would be chosen over a single piece of A, or an A token.

With real food, this threshold was around three pieces of B. But for the token test much more of the less-favoured food needed to be offered before the monkey would choose that option.

It's unclear why this should be the case, says Addessi. “They are able to reason with tokens as with real food, but they find it more difficult to reason with tokens,” she says. This behaviour is similar to that of a small child.

An alternative explanation might be that tokens are an abstract concept. The monkeys become less good at comparing two abstract sets of food – in a similar way to how many people spend more freely with a credit card than with cold, hard cash.Capuchins can appreciate the purchasing power of tokens such as poker chips.... more

smorrisey
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3 years ago
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Nerds might live longer

Yet another reason to stay in school kids! Anthropologist say big brains help up... more

Swiyyah
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4 years ago
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Dad baboons help their daughters mature

Having a daddy around when they are young is good for little girls. Baboon girls that... more

Swiyyah
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4 years ago
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