Orangutans playing with iPads! It is well-known that our ape cousins are highly intelligent. When they are in captivity, it is critical to give them ways to enrich and entertain themselves. As it turns out, Orangutans love using iPads. [more inside]
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike on Dec 31, 2011 - 22 comments

Monkey Business: four short films (about three minutes each) by Matthew Killip, about people who work with monkeys and apes. India: Rhesus Macaques as pests; USA: Chimpanzee as research subject; Nigeria: baboons as entertainers; Indonesia: macaque as harvester.
posted by Greg Nog on Sep 2, 2010 - 11 comments

Look at that tail! Stephen Nash has illustrated the most endangered primates (image gallery: part 1, part 2) -- so faithfully over the years that one now bears his name. The just-released "Primates in Peril" report has full profiles of each animal, along with all of Nash's illustrations (including those replaced by photos in the gallery above -- don't miss the sumatran orangutan!).
posted by salvia on Oct 30, 2007 - 6 comments

A new species of monkey turned up in India [NYTimes or Rediff]. Though the monkeys are new to science, people in the area are quite familiar with them. They call them "mun zala" or deep forest monkeys. It's a stocky, short-tailed, brown-haired creature they have named the Macaca munzala, or Arunachal macaque. Maybe not that excting for those of us not excited by, uh, mokeys, but did you know this year there have been other new things discovered? A new species of plec and one of Neon goby, even more exciting, a new electric fish was found as well. A quick search turned up dozens of new fish this year. ABC News says 178 new things found in the oceans this year alone, raising the number of life-forms found in the world's oceans to about 230,000. The big question is, of course, how many of those will Taste Like Chicken? The bad news on the little critter front is 1 in 10 bird species could vanish within 100 years, and I bet they all taste like chicken.
posted by Blake on Dec 16, 2004 - 16 comments

Six foot tall ferocious lion killing species of ape discovered in jungles of the Congo. Or they could be giant chimpanzees. Or half-breeds. The discovery has baffled scientists.
posted by stbalbach on Oct 9, 2004 - 30 comments

I'll raise you 5 bananas. What do Primate Programmers do in their off hours? Using David Sklansky's theorys to play Texas Hold'em online. As a poker-playing, programming, primate myself, I can relate.
posted by bashos_frog on May 22, 2004 - 2 comments

Copito de Nieve, a.k.a. Floquet de Neu, the only known white gorilla dies at age 37. It was one of the symbols of my hometown Barcelona. Snowflake was the star of the Barcelona Zoo, he always surrounded by female gorillas (not surprisingly he produced 22 offspring but none of them albino) and was famous because of his bad mood and tendency to throw things around. He was finally put down today as his skin cancer condition was aggravating. There it goes a no small part of my childhood (although I preferred the dolphins, always so cheerful)... Snowflake no longer lives with Virunga and Coco... (sigh!)
posted by samelborp on Nov 24, 2003 - 9 comments

Make love not war. Amoung humans closest relatives, these monkeys solve conflict by makeing love. A lot. Female dominate society they have no homicide and tensions in the group are non existent.
posted by stbalbach on Jul 1, 2001 - 17 comments

Tale of the Coke Monkeys. GAH! Coke may lead to Cannabis! It's Salon, but it's hilarious.
posted by snakey on Nov 29, 2000 - 4 comments