In past Gralien Report articles, I’ve discussed some astonishing recent studies and observations in the world of the higher primates, specifically involving chimpanzees who have learned to use tools, and even swim. another reoccurring theme here has involved the concept of “Humanzees”, that is, human-ape hybrids. The fact that the small apes can display such learned “human” characteristics implies similarities between humans and chimpanzees on a genetic level which may previously have been overlooked.
CHIMPS IN SPACE: Enos, NASA’s “Space Chimp”, prior to being inserted into the Mercury-Atlas 5 in 1961, displaying typical human-like behavior among what he perceived to be “curiously chimp-like people.”
However, a new study suggests that chimpanzees also exhibit other man-like activities, including planning for the future, as well as avoiding cat-fights among females by keeping quiet about their sexual partners. Originally published in Animal Cognition, the study which resulted in a display of planning on behalf of the apes involved Linda and Maria Magdalena, a pair of female chimps, along with a male orangutan named Naong, who were shown how to sip “a yummy fruit soup using a straw-like hose.”
The researchers next presented their furry test subjects with a favorite fruit — a grape — and the hose, which the animals could save and use to sip soup later. The apes exercised self-control by foregoing the immediate grape reward. They instead chose the hose and patiently waited for the bigger food payoff.”To control for associative learning, a process whereby someone just blindly links one thing to another, the researchers again offered fruit to the apes, as well as one functional tool and three non-functional ones.
The scientists also conducted a similar test, where they again presented the sippy hose, but tried to distract the animals with a blue plastic car, a small teddy bear, a colorful screwdriver handle, a brown bootlace, a yellow plastic toy spade, a picture of a banana, and other items potentially coveted by apes.The chimps and the orangutan aced the tests, choosing the hose 11 out of 12 trials.
In fact, one of the few glitches during the entire study occurred when Linda’s playing infant grabbed the hose and hid it.
The researchers believe that their study shows “the value of the hose is not intrinsic, meaning it is not worth anything in itself, as it would have if it were associatively learned.” Elsewhere, scientists with the University of St Andrews who studied the copulation calls of female chimps in Uganda discovered that the chimp gals “sometimes keep quiet during sex so their female rivals don’t know what they’ve been up to.”
Evolutionary psychologists Simon Townsend and Klaus Zuberbuhler studied chimp behavior in Uganda’s Budongo Forest over 16 months.
The team established that female chimpanzees hid their sexual activity when high-ranking females were nearby, perhaps in a bid to reduce competition for good quality males.This could prevent higher-ranking female chimpanzees from turning on them.
Chimps displaying such behavior, as well as classic examples of Gorillas like Coco using sign language to communicate efficiently with humans further blurs the lines between the species. Could genetic cross-breeding between the two species be a scientific possibility? Or, sometime in the not-too-distant past, has it already been done?