Baboons // Current TV

Nigerian hyena handlers /Gadawan Kura/

These photographs came about after a friend emailed me an image taken on a cellphone... more

worrg
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Rewritten Headlines: Romney to Babboons

Tony D rewrites today's headlines.

TonyDiGerolamo
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When Monkeys Attack (VIDEO) - The Daily Blender

Wow, they need to feed these monkeys more often? They act like they're starving.... more

dryeraser
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Baboons Sniff Out a Better, Sweeter Orange

Baboons sniff out a better orange A baboon is seen near a road outside Cape Town,... more

EthicalVegan
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Top 10 Animals You don't Want In Your Luggage

Did you hear about the guy who found a stowaway scorpion in his luggage after he and... more

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Think Tank Research Project: The Orangutan Language Project

Think Tank is a place to think about thinking. It combines the appeal of orangutans,... more

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Mythic East Africa in Black and White

YOUNG GALLERY- UK Born and raised in London, Nick Brandt studied Film and... more

remanns
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South Africans Battle Baboons in City Streets

South Africans battle baboons in city streets April 26, 2010 10:45 a.m. EDT Cape... more

EthicalVegan
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3 years ago
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Where Will the Beautiful Animals Go When the Bolivia Circus-Animal Ban Finally Goes Into Effect?

April 16, 2010 | 3:51 pm COCHABAMBA, Bolivia — She could have lived... more

EthicalVegan
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Help, My Neighborhood Has Been Overrun By Baboons!!

“My Neighborhood Has Been Overrun By Baboons” is a hilarious animated... more

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Deciphering the Chatter of Monkeys and Chimps

Deciphering the Chatter of Monkeys
By NICHOLAS WADE

Walking through the Tai forest of Ivory Coast, Klaus Zuberbühler could hear the calls of the Diana monkeys, but the babble held no meaning for him.

That was in 1990. Today, after nearly 20 years of studying animal communication, he can translate the forest’s sounds. This call means a Diana monkey has seen a leopard. That one means it has sighted another predator, the crowned eagle. “In our experience time and again, it’s a humbling experience to realize there is so much more information being passed in ways which hadn’t been noticed before,” said Dr. Zuberbühler, a psychologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Do apes and monkeys have a secret language that has not yet been decrypted? And if so, will it resolve the mystery of how the human faculty for language evolved? Biologists have approached the issue in two ways, by trying to teach human language to chimpanzees and other species, and by listening to animals in the wild.

The first approach has been propelled by people’s intense desire — perhaps reinforced by childhood exposure to the loquacious animals in cartoons — to communicate with other species. Scientists have invested enormous effort in teaching chimpanzees language, whether in the form of speech or signs. A New York Times reporter who understands sign language, Boyce Rensberger, was able in 1974 to conduct what may be the first newspaper interview with another species when he conversed with Lucy, a signing chimp. She invited him up her tree, a proposal he declined, said Mr. Rensberger, who is now at M.I.T.

But with a few exceptions, teaching animals human language has proved to be a dead end. They should speak, perhaps, but they do not. They can communicate very expressively — think how definitely dogs can make their desires known — but they do not link symbolic sounds together in sentences or have anything close to language.

Better insights have come from listening to the sounds made by animals in the wild. Vervet monkeys were found in 1980 to have specific alarm calls for their most serious predators. If the calls were recorded and played back to them, the monkeys would respond appropriately. They jumped into bushes on hearing the leopard call, scanned the ground at the snake call, and looked up when played the eagle call.

It is tempting to think of the vervet calls as words for “leopard,” “snake” or “eagle,” but that is not really so. The vervets do not combine the calls with other sounds to make new meanings. They do not modulate them, so far as is known, to convey that a leopard is 10, or 100, feet away. Their alarm calls seem less like words and more like a person saying “Ouch!” — a vocal representation of an inner mental state rather than an attempt to convey exact information.

But the calls do have specific meaning, which is a start. And the biologists who analyzed the vervet calls, Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney of the University of Pennsylvania, detected another significant element in primates’ communication when they moved on to study baboons. Baboons are very sensitive to who stands where in their society’s hierarchy. If played a recording of a superior baboon threatening an inferior, and the latter screaming in terror, baboons will pay no attention — this is business as usual in baboon affairs. But when researchers concoct a recording in which an inferior’s threat grunt precedes a superior’s scream, baboons will look in amazement toward the loudspeaker broadcasting this apparent revolution in their social order.

CONTINUED...Deciphering the Chatter of Monkeys By NICHOLAS WADE Walking through the Tai forest... more

EthicalVegan
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Baboon troupes rob South African tourists, steal food

Visitors to South Africa's premier holiday destination who are worried about... more

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Resturant critic shoots baboon, to see what it was like

Animal welfare groups voiced outrage today after the restaurant critic AA Gill said he... more

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3 years ago
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Luggage-stealing baboons...

Planning a visit to see the baboons at Knowsley Safari Park in Merseyside, U.K.?... more

irishgirlforever
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Cheeky Monkeys Cause Safari Park Chaos

A clever group of baboons in Knowsley Safari Park has figured out how to open rooftop... more

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3 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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5 years ago
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Nigerian hyena handlers /Gadawan Kura/

Rewritten Headlines: Romney to Babboons

When Monkeys Attack (VIDEO) - The Daily Blender

Baboons Sniff Out a Better, Sweeter Orange

Top 10 Animals You don't Want In Your Luggage

Think Tank Research Project: The Orangutan Language Project

Mythic East Africa in Black and White

South Africans Battle Baboons in City Streets

Where Will the Beautiful Animals Go When the Bolivia Circus-Animal Ban Finally Goes Into Effect?

Help, My Neighborhood Has Been Overrun By Baboons!!

Deciphering the Chatter of Monkeys and Chimps

Baboon troupes rob South African tourists, steal food

Resturant critic shoots baboon, to see what it was like

Luggage-stealing baboons...

Cheeky Monkeys Cause Safari Park Chaos

Dad baboons help their daughters mature

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