A weblog about stuff and junk by Jake Sutton
Monkeys “imitate with a purpose�, matching their behaviour to others’ as a form of social learning, researchers report.
Such mimicry has previously been seen only in great apes – including humans and chimps – but now Italian researchers have recorded wonderful footage of the phenomenon in newborn rhesus macaques.
Oh sure, they “imitate with a purpose” alright: To take us down a notch and move on up the evolutionary scale, I’d say!
Stupid learning monkeys…
India Tries to Chase Monkeys From Trains
The langur handler is being paid a retainer of India rupees 6,900 ($160) a month, and ”he will be called whenever there is a monkey problem,” Anuj Dayal, the spokesman for the Delhi Metro Rail Corp., was quoted as saying.
On June 9, a monkey reportedly crawled through some pipes and ended up aboard a train, scowling at passengers and jumping around a car.
Simianista commandos are crawling through pipes onto trains to terrorize the human race… And we find this on a site called “Happy News”?
I beg to differ!
Squirrel Monkey troop escapes London Zoo
“The squirrel monkeys have managed to gain access to some of the taller trees in their enclosure and from there, have leapt into the higher branches of a tree in Regents Park,” a London Zoo spokeswoman said.
They go on to say that the squirrel monkeys pose no threat, but then they mention this bit:
She said they were a very intelligent set of monkeys and staff had previously had to train them to stop stealing visitor’s mobile phones.
Thievery and jailbreaking?! These critters are obviously immune to rehabilitation.
Update: As expected, Betty, the last of the bunch to still be roaming around, finally came back on her own.
A Japanese monkey aptly named Oops bolted from the Roanoke city zoo, sparking a park-wide shutdown as staff searched the surrounding forest where they could hear her in the trees.
The 20-pound Japanese macaque and her family were being moved from their holding cells to the exhibit for routine feeding and cleaning when she got away Sunday morning, said David Jobe, education curator at Mill Mountain Zoo. She was still on the run Monday morning.
“We hope that because they’re active in the daytime, she slept last night and woke up this morning hungry,” Jobe said. “We hope to take advantage of a hungry monkey.”
If I had a dollar for everytime I’ve heard that…
Baboons move into S. African beach homes
Unruly gangs are raiding the expensive homes that line the spectacular coast of South Africa’s Cape Peninsula, clearing out pantries, emptying fridges, and defecating over the designer furnishings.
It’s baboon versus human in a string of wealthy ocean-front communities 30 minutes from the trendy center of Cape Town, a top tourist destination.
…
George is one of the biggest baboons in a troop of about 20, an adult male weighing some 110 pounds. He yawns languidly, displaying wickedly curved canine teeth.
“If you think how easily a baboon could rip a person apart, the fact that they don’t is quite remarkable,” Trethowan said.
Um… Gee. How lucky we are not to be torn assunder by the beasts we allow to live in our luxury neighborhoods.
Yeah, I get that.
Shouting monkeys show surprising eloquence
Putty-nosed monkeys (Cercopithecus nictitans) live in family groups, usually led by a dominant male who keeps a wary eye out for their two main enemies — leopards and eagles. A circling eagle will cause a male to warn his troop by making a series of calls called ‘hacks’, whereas a lurking leopard will prompt him to shout out a string of ‘pyow’ sounds.
…
But now zoologists have realized that at least one combination of these sounds has its own distinct meaning: up to three pyows followed by up to four hacks seems to mean ‘let’s move on’. This call sequence is given both in response to the presence of predators or simply as a sign to head for new terrain.
And I wonder which sequence of hacks and pyows means, “Here come the humans, the time to overtake is NOW!!!”
(Props to new coworker, John.)
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