Candid GorillaCam
The camera had been placed along the path by members of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which is looking to save this highly endangered species (250 of them remaining) from extinction.
Bob Barker to Chimps: “Come On Down!”
Last year, he donated $380,000 for a new habitat at Chimp Haven. And last week, the irrepressible Bob Barker flew down to the sanctuary in Louisiana to cut the ribbon — or rather to pick up the microphone and call out to five newly arrived chimpanzees: “Come on down!”
Where’s Oscar?
Adorable Oscar, the star of the Disneynature movie Chimpanzee, has gone AWOL. In fact, according to the movie’s director, Mark Linfield, Oscar hasn’t been seen since…
Highway Robbery – Baboon Style
It used to be that the humans were bothering the baboons. Now it’s the other way round. People visiting Yankari Game Reserve in Nigeria are having…
How Orangutans Make (Comfy) Beds
An orangutan peeks out of her nest in the Sumatran forest. (All photos by Adam van Casteren) You climb high up into the trees, where the…
Spellbound by Baboons
Dan is a baboon who lives at the Cognitive Research Laboratory in France. He and five other baboons have had access to a computer that stores 500 real four-letter words and nearly 8,000 non-words, like XFOP or TYWQ.
Will Israel Ban Monkey Exports to U.S.?
Israel’s attorney-general, Yehuda Weinstein, has told the nation’s High Court of Justice that it is illegal for a vivisection breeding farm to export their macaque monkeys to laboratories in the United States.
Chat with Bonobos on Your Tablet!
Researchers at the Bonobo Hope Great Ape Trust Sanctuary in Des Moines, Iowa, have developed a tablet app that allows humans to communicate with the great apes who are living at their sanctuary.
Leading Scientist Says Chimpanzees Should Have Moral Standing
If you want to understand human nature, learn from other animals – especially chimpanzees. That’s the word from one of the world’s experts on chimpanzee behavior, Frans de Waal. He’s been studying chimpanzees for nearly 40 years, mostly at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center …
The Rights of a Nonhuman Person
What rights might a chimpanzee or a dolphin have when we consider these nonhumans as persons with the capacity for legal rights. Eric Michael Johnson writes about this in his “Primate Blogs” at Scientific American:
Which of the Following Is a Person?
John Rennie, former editor-in-chief of Scientific American, looks at each of these species and wonders which of them might qualify for recognition as legal persons as opposed to legal things.
Bonobos Help a Friend in Need
As soon as other members of the group realized that one of their own was trapped, they gathered around him. One of them untangled the snare from vines, enabling him to move. But they still couldn’t free him from the wire.
How ‘Teacher’ Steps in When Chimps Squabble
When things get rowdy in the playground at school, the teacher may decide to step in. As it turns out, chimpanzees do much the same thing.
Happy to Help, but Please Ask First
There’s more and more evidence that chimps have what scientists call a “theory of mind” – the ability to understand the minds of others. (It was once thought that only humans had this ability.)
Chimps Are Smart and Altruistic
Ayumu, who lives at Kyoto University in Japan, is back in the news for his ability to remember the location and order of a set of numbers in less time than it take you to blink – 30 milliseconds, to be precise.
Humans Are, by Nature, Quite Nice
But human children — and most higher animals — are “moral” in a scientific sense, because they need to cooperate with each other to reproduce and pass on their genes, he said.
Super Bowl 2012 Ads: The Winner… and Losers
It wasn’t even close. Far and away, the biggest winner of the Super Bowl advertising blitz was the Bud Light commercial. The spot features Weego the rescue dog who, when called (“Here, Weego!”), fetches beer on command. Sure, the dog is cute and plucky and eager to please. But the real feel-good (dare I say intoxicating?) moments come at the very beginning and very end of the ad.
Time to Outlaw TV Spots with Chimps
An ad from Career Builder, prepared for the Super Bowl, received huge attention online. Career Builder is a Chicago company, but Dr. Steve Ross, chimp expert at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo, said he couldn’t believe the company would use chimps in TV commercials.
Lobbyists Try to Ward off Ban on Chimp Research
The Hill, Washington D.C.’s main newspaper for and about the U.S. Congress, is seeing a surge in lobbying activity from people in the business of doing experiments on chimpanzees.
Art by Other Animals
In the late 1950s, the surrealism painter Salvador Dali saw one of the canvases by Congo, a chimpanzee, whose artworks had been shown on the British TV show Zoo Time.