Apes
Category archives for Apes
Driving The Patriarchy: Demonic Males, Feminism, and Genetic Determinism
Posted by Greg Laden on July 7, 2011 Behaviors are not caused by genes. There is not a gene that causes you to be good, or to be bad, or to be smart, or good at accounting, or to like bananas. There are, however, drives. “Drives” is a nicely vague term that we can all understand the meaning of. Thirst and hunger are…
Isabel Behncke: Evolution’s gift of play, from bonobo apes to humans
Posted by Greg Laden on March 22, 2011 With never-before-seen video, primatologist Isabel Behncke Izquierdo (a TED Fellow) shows how bonobo ape society learns from constantly playing — solo, with friends, even as a prelude to sex. Indeed, play appears to be the bonobos’ key to problem-solving and avoiding conflict. If it works for our close cousins, why not for us?
What I know about Marc Hauser, the recently ‘investigated’ Harvard primatologist
Posted by Greg Laden on August 12, 2010 I know Marc Hauser, and I trust him. I worked with him for a few years as a colleague on the faculty in the Anthropology department on various administrative matters (such as graduate admission and undergraduate program development) and we taught together. We are very different kinds of people, and did not always see eye…
New Primate Fossil Informs Us of the Ape-Monkey Split During the Oligocene
Posted by Greg Laden on August 11, 2010 The newly reported Saadanius hijazensis may or may not be a “missing link” but in order for this monkey to climb onto the primate family tree, a new branch had to be sprouted. So, not only is Saadanius hijazensis a new species, but it is a member of a new taxonomic Family, Saadaniidae, which in…
Falsehood: Humans evolved from apes
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2010 Is it a Falsehood that Humans Evolve from Apes? How about this one: Is it a Falsehood that Humans did NOT evolve from Apes???? Yes and no. Humans descend from a population of primates from which other apes also descended (minimally the two species of living chimps) and which was part of the panoply of…
Nyamulagira Volcano and Human Evolution
Posted by Greg Laden on January 4, 2010 I had mentioned earlier that the volcanoes of the Virugna region in the Western Rift Valley (as well as other highland spots) have often been islands of rain forest separated from each other by different habitats, including grasslands and wooded savannas. this has produced an island effect that has been a laboratory for evolution, and…
Chimps in captivity are a problem.
Posted by Greg Laden on February 17, 2009 The incident just reported an hour or so ago is unusual, but not unexpected or unheard of. A 200-pound chimpanzee kept as a pet and once used in commercials was shot and killed by police Monday after it mauled a woman visiting its owner and later cornered an officer in his cruiser, authorities said. Stamford…
Great Moments in Human Evolution: The Invention of Chipped Stone Tools
Posted by Greg Laden on February 12, 2009 Or not. Much is made of the early use of stone tools by human ancestors. Darwin saw the freeing of the hands ad co-evolving with the use of the hands to make and use tools which co-evolved with the big brain. And that would make the initial appearance of stone tools in the archaeological record…
How diverse were early hominoids?
Posted by Greg Laden on February 12, 2009 And hominids. We know the fossil record underestimates diversity at least a little, and we know that forested environments in Africa tend to be underrepresented. Given this, the diversity of Miocene apes may have been rather impressive, because there is a fairly high diversity in what we can assume is a biased record. But I’d…
Good News for Great Apes
Posted by Greg Laden on April 25, 2008 The world’s rarest great ape has found a safe haven in the mountains of the west central African nation of Cameroon. With guidance from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Cameroon’s prime minister, Ephraim Inoni, has created the world’s first sanctuary exclusively for the Cross River gorilla. Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary spans only 19.5 square kilometers but…