Some serious proof has been uncovered by the Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

The group has learned that wild female chimpanzees copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them over long periods of time. In other words, men that share, get it more often. (Can you imagine the guy sitting out in the wild counting how many times Rosy the Ape copulated this month?)

Zakayo, the oldest alpha male chimpanzee in Uganda

Scientists (ahem) have long puzzled about this. They believe that men who are more successful hunters get more wives and a larger number of offspring. Let’s see. Men who do their jobs well get better wives. And people study this over while sitting in bushes? Come on!

Studies on wild chimpanzees show that male hunters share meat (not that meat) with females who did not participate in the hunt. One hypotheses proposed is meat-for-sex. But evidence doesn’t really support the claim though males, both humans and chimpanzees want the support.

In research conducted in the Tai National Park, Coted’Ivoire, it was found that females copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them on at least one occasion. Males who never shared never had sex. Well, duh!!

Gomes said: “Our results strongly suggest that wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex, and do so on a long-term basis. Males who shared meat with females doubled their mating success, whereas females, who had difficulty obtaining meat on their own, increased their caloric intake, without suffering the energetic costs and potential risk of injury related to hunting.”

“Previous studies might not have found a relationship between mating success and meat sharing because they focused on short-term exchanges; or perhaps because in those groups access to females was driven by male coercion so females rarely chose their mating partners,” she added.

The conclusion: “Our findings add to the ever-growing evidence suggesting that chimpanzees can think in the past and the future and that this influences their present behavior.”

So, “where’s my meat?”

The population of Yunnan golden monkeys has grown form more than 500 in 1983 to around 1,300 at present. I suppose that’s a lot but I know conservative churches that grow faster than that by just letting their congregants have babies. Maybe, we need to send these monkeys to church, no?

The population increase happened at the nature reserve due to the protection efforts of local government and residents.

China – the only country where they can be found,has some 2,000 Yunnan golden monkeys altogether in the country. They are mammal and are listed in Category I of the Chinese Wildlife Protection Act. They are one of the most endangered animals in Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). They are also on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).

Further, they can never be found in church or chances are there would be a lot more of them, and if not, well they’d be happier in eternity.

Seriously. Congratulations to China and the reserve on the population growth of the monkeys. But, then…China has never had problems with having a huge population, now has it?

[via Sina]

Every time we talk about why each threatened species got so close to disappearing forever, the inevitable answer seems to be human activity (be it habitat destruction or excessive hunting).

The Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys are one of the rarest primates on Earth. Though only 200 of them exist, new hope emerged as another group of angry-looking monkeys has been found in wild in Vietnam by a group of scientists. While moving through the dense forests, they uncovered a rare treasure – 20 Tonkin monkeys that had three young among them, indicating a vibrant clan and active breeding.

Their initial reaction to human contact was panic and danger which shows that hunting is still prevalent in these lands as the snub-nosed monkeys recognize people as a threat. That means that the whole clan should be protected because there is a long and hard road to recovery before we they get out of the “Red Zone”. Meanwhile locals, the Vietnamese government and the conversational organizations are working hard to make sure that we do not lose them.

Source: DailyMail

The International Gorilla Conservation Program says that almost half of the world’s monkeys and apes are feeling the worsening threat of extinction. The causes are deforestation and hunting for meat. I don’t get this report. Now, I love the animals as much as the next person. My wife even thinks I am an ape at times, but that’s not relevant. How can half of a species face extinction? Shouldn’t be the whole species is or isn’t? Does the report mean to say that monkeys and apes are losing their homes? That the overall world population of the bunch is decreasing because of problems in certain areas?

Let’s protect our friends, not relatives mind you, our friends, but let’s also be accurate in our reports and not alarmists or exaggerating.

In any event, it’s humans who are at fault here…taking these critters trees and worse, serving them up for dinner. What do you think should be done?

source

Who said apes are not smart? If you did, you may want to reconsider because researchers from Lunds University Cognitive Science in Sweden explained that apes are able to plan for their future needs, just as we humans do – by using self-control and imagining future events. Now we understand why they go fishing …

Mathias and Helena Osvath, the two researchers demonstrated that chimpanzees and orangutans could override immediate drives in favor of future needs.

They were then tempted with their favorite fruit alongside the hose to test their ability to suppress the choice of the immediate reward (favorite fruit) in favor of a tool (the hose) that would lead to a larger reward 70 minutes later on (the fruit soup). The apes chose the hose more frequently than their favorite fruit suggesting that they are able to make choices in favor of future needs, even when they directly compete with an immediate reward.

Though I like apes very much (how not to love – pic) I’m not sure if they plan or not. Maybe they’ve just built habits or were forced to develop habits, what do you think?
The research is going to be published online this week in Springer’s journal, Animal Cognition.

Original image by guppiecat

There’s a saying, “give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, feed him for life”. What do they say when monkeys learn how to fish? And, don’t they say things like when cows fly or pigs play the piano?

In Bangkok, the long-tailed macaque monkey can grab fruit from trees or bananaz from tourists, in India, the “cute little” monkeys are considered thieves and pests but in Indonesia, the silver-haired (retired and collecting a pension maybe?) macaque knows how to fish.

Big deal! I mean you get a pole, some string, a hook and some bait, right? Not these little primates. They just reach in and grab the little Nemos.

Though baboons, orangutans, and chimpanzees have been known to fish as well, researchers say this is a “rare and isolated” behavior. Now I wonder, can these monkeys teach us how to fish?