Browsing All posts tagged under »primates«

Run for cover, ape pulls the trigger on an AK-47

July 16, 2011

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This video (see below) has gone viral. More than 8 million people have viewed it and it’s sparked a debate as to whether it is genuine or a fake. It’s also believed to have been released in the run-up to the new film Rise of the Planet of the Apes out next month. The short film […]

Public misconceptions could be threatening the survival of Chimpanzees

July 15, 2011

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The other night I had the oddest dream. Perhaps it was a combination of too much cheese and wine before bedtime. I dreamt that Sir David Attenborough and I were in the jungle together filming a docco about a newly discovered species of ape that had bright green hair. It had the face of a gibbon […]

Chimp recognises distorted speech

July 12, 2011

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The notion that language evolved only in the human lineage has long been attributed to the linguist, Noam Chomsky. He argued that mankind had a special “language organ” unique to us which did not exist in any other animal. This idea has been challenged over the years by a number of researchers who argue that […]

East Africa’s worst drought – or is this the shape of things to come?

July 8, 2011

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At eight forty-five this morning I was on a train heading out of London to Cambridge. I squeezed into a seat sandwiched between wide-eyed, anxious teenagers and their somewhat smug parents. After all even if your kid is bright enough to get into the historic university, you still need some serious cash to afford the […]

Tourists in Morocco pose a threat to an endangered species of monkey

June 28, 2011

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Can you believe it’s almost July? Where on earth has the last six months gone? Soon schools will be breaking up and families will be descending on the airports in their droves for their summer getaway. While every government welcomes tourism and the money it can generate for the country; especially in these difficult economic […]

Roll up, roll up, place your vote to ban wild animal circuses

June 23, 2011

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The idea of a circus leaves me cold for two reasons. The first is a very personal experience and the second, is due to my role as someone who is beginning to appreciate the value and importance of conservation and wildlife. My experience sadly wasn’t a private memory, nope, in true reporter style it was […]

Primal instinct

June 18, 2011

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When an explosion at a chemical plant in Louisiana happened on Tuesday, thousands of primates housed just a mile away at the New Iberia Research Centre had nowhere to go. There are more than 7,000 primates (monkeys and chimps) on site. These animals however were one step ahead of their human relatives and knew  instinctively […]

Baby killers of the monkey world

June 15, 2011

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Cannibalism and infanticide are disturbingly common in nature and in one species of non human primate the females are the worst offenders. But what makes these revelations all the more shocking is that female moustached tamarins are not killing their competitors’ offspring, but their own. The moustached tamarin (Saguinus mystax) can be found in the […]

Keeping a cool head could be the answer to a good night’s sleep

June 14, 2011

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It still surprises me that many people do not realise that we are classified in the mammalian order Primates. Only last week I had a colleague raise his eyebrows once he was given this nugget of information. He’d scampered over to quizzed me about my new career path after it was mentioned during some gossip […]

Is your child smarter than a chimp?

June 9, 2011

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Most parents I know take great pride in bragging about how smart their kids are. Is this something they inherit? Or does it boil down to how much effort mummy and daddy put into developing their cognitive skills? Scientists say babies’ sensory organs are not fully developed at birth and need fine tuning, so the early childhood […]