Chimps in caves with weapons

April 22, 2007 6:23 PM

Common chimps like early humans
posted by Listener (16 comments total)

Fruit flies like a banana.
posted by grouse at 6:40 PM on April 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

Well, I like common chimps too.
posted by AwkwardPause at 6:41 PM on April 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

...average annual daily temperature within the cave was 75.5 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with 85.2 degrees in the woodland locales and 76.2 degrees in grassland areas...

"These findings really point out the range of behavioral and cognitive flexibility that exists for chimpanzees."

Does it also point out the cognitive flexibility of my cats, who similarly find cool spots to lie down in the heat of the summer? I'd say the much more surprising part is not that furry animals don't heat but this: Pruetz and her colleagues recently found that Fongoli chimps apparently could manufacture spears to hunt other primates... Whoa!
posted by DU at 6:42 PM on April 22, 2007

"But remember, evolution is only a THEORY!"

Seriously, what's so exceptional or "a-ha!" about this? Don't several species, like wolves, lizards and bats, hang out in caves too?
posted by davy at 6:48 PM on April 22, 2007

Well, to be fair the, erm, generalization was done by Listener. The headline of the article was "Chimps Spotted Using Caves, Like Early Humans", and "spotted using caves," was omitted.

Now obviously Chimps are going to be "like" early humans in lots of different ways, such as being mammals. This is just one more attribute they share, nothing groundbreaking.

It was kind of cool that the researcher was from my University.
posted by delmoi at 6:53 PM on April 22, 2007

Clearly my headline-writing skills have gone to shit.
posted by Listener at 7:20 PM on April 22, 2007

You laugh now but when we're outsourcing software development to them, no one will be laughing.

Except the chimps, of course.
posted by illovich at 7:34 PM on April 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

Great. First they get caves. Next thing you know they move into your neighborhood and sit out on the lawn eating bananas,riding unicycles with pants on, and flinging crap around, and then there go the property values.

Some of my best friends are monkeys,mind you...
posted by jonmc at 8:06 PM on April 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

Hey, I like...

Fruit flies...

Damn it.
posted by Wataki at 8:34 PM on April 22, 2007

My initial reaction was also of the do we really need science to tell us the obvious camp, but the scientist being interviewed here makes a very compelling defense. "And if Jane Goodall hasn't heard of it, then I assume it it's not known to science." Amen to that!
posted by kaspen at 10:30 PM on April 22, 2007

Someone should write a Sci Fi script about a future world in which chimps are the dominant species. The society is divided up between the violent gorillas, pedantic and conservative orangutans, and intellectual chimpanzees. Charlton Heston could play the...

Oh, wait...
posted by chuckdarwin at 2:08 AM on April 23, 2007

So what's going on with the spotted monkeys?
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:09 AM on April 23, 2007

Details are spotty at best.
posted by grouse at 6:40 AM on April 23, 2007

There was this thing on Discovery last night about these mountain-climbing babboons. These babboons have been empirically proven to be rad—however, they don't like early humans as they think that is just as rude as being late.
posted by Mister_A at 6:54 AM on April 23, 2007

Someone should write a Sci Fi script...

What? Chimps in caves isn't sci-fi enough for you?
posted by elkelk at 9:36 AM on April 23, 2007

Pan troglodytes living in caves. Huh.
posted by squarehead at 2:23 PM on April 23, 2007 [1 favorite]