In 2010, scientists announced the discovery of a new primate species, the Myanmar Snub-nosed Monkey, which we posted here. At the time, the only known specimen was a carcass. Now, photographs of a group of these monkeys have been taken with a camera trap in the mountains of Kachin state in Burma. Researchers are especially excited to see that this critically endangered species is producing babies. Link -via Geekosystem

(Image credit: FFI/BANCA/PRCF)

Pete (the monkey) watched Louis (the man) washing dishes at an animal sanctuary in Bolivia. Pete learned fast! Read more about Pete and the baby he is “babysitting” at Amazing Stuff. Link -Thanks, Duncan!

Screaming Monkey Slingshot – $5.95

Has workday stress got you down? Is it time to unleash the flying monkeys? You need the Screaming Monkey Slingshot from the NeatoShop. This hilarious plush monkey screams as he zooms through the air. Hey, don’t knock it till you try it. Letting loose the flying monkeys certainly seemed to make the Wicked Witch of the West feel better.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Cubicle Toys and awesome Wizard of Oz items!

Link

]]> http://www.neatorama.com/2011/11/04/screaming-monkey-slingshot/feed/ 0 http://www.neatorama.com/2011/09/24/monkeynomics-can-you-teach-a-monkey-to-spend-money/ http://www.neatorama.com/2011/09/24/monkeynomics-can-you-teach-a-monkey-to-spend-money/#comments Sun, 25 Sep 2011 03:28:38 +0000 Alex http://www.neatorama.com/2011/09/24/monkeynomics-can-you-teach-a-monkey-to-spend-money/

Can you teach a monkey the basics of market economy?

In this article over at our pal mental_floss, Allen St. John wrote about an intriguing research by Laurie Santos and Keith Chen of Yale University to see if they can teach monkeys to spend money:

A video of one of these early experiments shows that when Felix, the group’s alpha male, entered, he received a “wallet” with 12 of those round aluminum tokens. Two student researchers, one wearing a pink T-shirt, the other blue, stood on either side of that 3-foot cubic enclosure, each holding a different tray of food. The premise at this stage was pretty basic: Felix could swap his tokens for food with either of the two researchers. He didn’t seem to care much about the students. But he did care profoundly about what the researchers would sell him in exchange for that little metal token.

Felix and the others were cautious, observant shoppers. As the video shows, Felix would head first to the researcher holding out pieces of orange, examining them carefully; before leaving, he stopped to smell them. He went to the other researcher and did exactly the same thing—looking, sniffing, shopping. He then headed back to the first researcher and handed over a token to complete the transaction. Oranges, please.

“When you watch it, it looks like they’re contemplating, thinking about what they’re going to buy,” says Santos. What separates these capuchins from the scores of animals who have been trained to perform complex behaviors in exchange for food is the option presented by that second researcher.

“The critical aspect of money is that it’s fungible. It represents a choice,” explains Chen. “A coin is fundamentally different than, say, pressing a lever.” Santos and Chen had not only achieved their preliminary goal, they had made history: The monkeys were using cash. The capuchins were now operating in a sphere where humans had been dwelling alone.

Link

Are you looking for a great place to sock away your lunch money?  You need the Sock Monkey Coin Purse from the NeatoShop. Your friends are going to go wild over the handy dandy way you carry loose change.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Back to School items!

Link

]]> http://www.neatorama.com/2011/08/05/sock-monkey-coin-purse/feed/ 0 http://www.neatorama.com/2011/07/13/can-a-monkey-license-its-copyrights-to-a-news-agency/ http://www.neatorama.com/2011/07/13/can-a-monkey-license-its-copyrights-to-a-news-agency/#comments Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:56:57 +0000 Miss Cellania http://www.neatorama.com/?p=49228 In a story we brought you last week, a monkey grabbed photographer David Slater’s camera and took several pictures, including this one of himself. This picture doesn’t have a copyright notice, but two other pictures at Mail Online have a watermark from Caters News Agency. Techdirt finds that a little strange.

So here’s the legal question: how did the copyright get assigned to Caters? I can’t see how there’s been a legal transfer. The monkeys were unlikely to have sold or licensed the work. I’m assuming that it’s likely that the photographer, Slater, probably submitted the photos to the agency, and from a common sense view of things, that would make perfect sense. But from a letter-of-the-law view of things, Slater almost certainly does not hold the copyrights on those images, and has no legal right to then sell, license or assign them to Caters.

I don’t think anyone is worrying about the monkey filing an infringement suit, but it is an interesting question. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!

Update: Caters News Agency contacted Techdirt, and asked them to take down the two pictures. Someone in the comments offered to pay for the monkey pictures with a picture of a spider. Link -Thanks, wernerna!

(Image credit: an unnamed Indonesian Macaque)

Giggles Coat – $29.95

OK, it’s not really Dress Like A Monkey Day. I just made that up.  BUT, doesn’t Dress Like A Monkey Day sound like a fun holiday.

Can we talk seriously? Do you ever have the urge to dress your child like a monkey?  Well, now you can with the Giggles Coat from the NeatoShop!  Remember, you are not weird you are just an attentive parent.

Monkey Hat – $16.95

Don’t worry the NeatoShop has a matching Monkey Hat for you too.  Oh, you are dressed the same! That is so cute! It’s also a little weird, but hey who am I to judge.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fabulous Apparel & Accessories!

Happy Dress Like A Monkey Day!

]]> http://www.neatorama.com/2011/03/29/happy-dress-like-a-monkey-day/feed/ 0 http://www.neatorama.com/2010/12/27/women-with-monkeys/ http://www.neatorama.com/2010/12/27/women-with-monkeys/#comments Mon, 27 Dec 2010 12:49:12 +0000 Miss Cellania http://www.neatorama.com/?p=39898

George Seurat’s famous painting “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of LaGrande Jatte” shows a monkey at the feet of a woman. It could be that the model actually had a monkey at the beach, or it may symbolize that the woman was a prostitute! Minnesotastan put together a post exploring the monkey as a symbol of prostitution. Some images contain art nudes, which may be NSFW. Link

You’ve seen this trick before, but this one is particularly well executed. -via Arbroath

Scientists first learned of “Snubby”—as they nicknamed the species—from hunters in the remote, mountainous Kachin state (map) in early 2010, according to the U.K.-based conservation group Flora & Fauna International (FFI), which announced the discovery Wednesday.

The hunters told the team of R. strykeri’s fleshy lips, upturned nose, and odd respiratory issue: Rain falling into the monkeys’ noses possibly causes the animals to sneeze, so they often spend soggy days with their heads tucked between their knees, the hunters said.

Local hunters told the FFI team that the rainy season was a good time to look for the monkeys because they made more noise during rain. Eventually, more of the snub-nosed monkeys were seen, but they moved so fast no photographs could be taken. Link

(Image credit: Ngwe Lwin)

If it’s cute and it’s viral, Parry Grip will write a song about it. Here he lends his talents to the Boar-riding Monkey at the Fukuchiyama Zoo in Kyoto, Japan. -via Laughing Squid

Previously at Neatorama: The Nom Nom Song and He’s a Cat Flushing a Toilet.

This baby monkey clings to a young boar for security as it roams about the Fukuchiyama Zoo in Kyoto, Japan. TV reports on the two have caused five times the usual number of people to visit the zoo!

Baby monkeys are known to cling to their mother for many months after they are born, and Miwa the orphaned monkey seems to think of the boar as his mommy (even though the boar is a boy). Miwa has also taken a liking to the woman who works at the zoo’s ticket counter. When he’s not riding the boar, Miwa is usually sleeping in the woman’s lap.

Both the monkey and the wild boar are growing up fast. The rodeos will only continue until the monkey grows out of the stage at which he feels it needs to cling to a parent – or – until the the boar will no longer tolerate the presence of a monkey on his back.

See several other videos of Miwa and the boar at Japan Probe. Link

Home video shot by Tampa residents and broadcast on local TV stations shows the macaque rummaging through trash bins, scaling walls in a single bound, even hanging out poolside and swiping fruit.

On at least a dozen occasions Florida Fish and Wildlife officials shot the plucky primate with tranquilizer darts. Increasingly large doses barely fazed him. One professional trapper, hunting the monkey, wondered whether the monkey had become a “drug addict.”

The monkey’s origin is still unknown. Link -via Environmental Graffiti -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!

Evil scientists, beware! Cages, plodding henchmen …er, "graduate students" and even seventeen-feet tall electrified fence are match for … the ninja monkeys:

A group of 15 monkeys at Kyoto University’s primate research institute in Aichi Prefecture, which are the focus of a string of high-profile scientific studies, escaped from their forest home which is encased by a 17ft high electric fence.

The monkeys made their bid for freedom by using tree branches to fling themselves one by one over the high voltage electric fence located nearly three metres away.

The ninja monkeys are invincible … well … except for one teeny tiny weakness:

However, despite the intelligence shown in their great escape, the primates appeared unsure as to what to do with their newfound freedom: the monkeys remained by the gates of the research centre and were lured back into captivity by scientists armed with peanuts.

Link

Why play boring old hand games like rock-paper-scissors, and lame derivatives, when there is another game that includes the awesomeness of pirates, ninjas and robots?  

Here is the new version of rock-paper-scissors, or rochambeau, as it is sometimes known. As you can see from the schematic below, each thing can beat two other things, and is, in turn beaten by two other things.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by drtundra.

In reference to this post.

This would be dangerous if it were a real ad. Link -via Nag on the Lake

They may look like the subspecies of an Ewok but they’re actually monkeys with incredible abilities and the strangest habits; food seasoning and hot tub bathing are but a few. See more photos at Environmental Graffiti.

Link

(image credit: Alexandra Boldereva)

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by clickathon.

Is shaking one’s head to mean "no" solely a human gesture? Perhaps not. This film from the BBC shows a mother Bonobo ape shaking her head at her rascal child to stop it playing with it’s food.

Bonobos are already known to use head-shaking to initiate interactions with other members of the group, such as playing.

However, this is the first study to film and observe an ape shaking its head in a negative context to stop or prevent other bonobo behaviour. [...]

The Germany-based scientists observed the behaviour whilst studying bonobos as part of wider study on the communication of great ape infants. Using video recordings they studied the gestures and behaviour of bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans in six European zoos.

During the study, they witnessed four individual bonobos shaking their heads in this way on 13 different occasions.

Previously only anecdotal reports have noted individual chimpanzees shaking their head to signal ‘no’.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by coconutnut.

This dreamy space music video featuring a lovable monkey, will tug on your heart and soul.

Created as a collaboration between World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Ben Lee and Leo Burnett, “Space Monkey” carries a message about our planet, and features Ben Lee’s track, “Song for the Divine Mother of the Universe”.

-via The Daily What

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by OrangeHipsters.

A Thai police force has begun taking a monkey dressed in officer’s uniform on patrol each day to help improve relations with Muslim separatists.

Trainers taught Santisuk, which means peace in Thai, to pick up coconuts and he now lends a hand collecting the fruit with residents.

The monkey also helps supervise a police checkpoint and his boss says he has made it a much happier place. Motorists now stop to play with Santisuk, rather than getting angry at the hold-up.

Other forces are now considering introducing monkeys to better their image in the troubled province.

Link

The History Bluff (motto: "Making a mess of history") brings us another headscratcher with the sad news that the first monkey to ever walk on the moon has passed away.

On June 3, 1981 Harlan the Monkey became the first primate to ever walk on the moon. Harlan died on November 18, 2009 of an apparent Tang overdose.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by geezyreezy.

This coming winter, ditch the slanket and get yourself warm the good ol’ fashioned geeky way: with USB hand/foot/eye(!) warmers and blanket. GeekAlerts blog has got your (chilly) backside covered with this article: 10 USB Gadgets to Help You Through the Winter

Link (Previously on Neatorama if you’re wondering, but I like the monkey gloves)

In New Delhi, where monkeys are a touch more revered and tolerated than they would be in most countries, rhesus macaques, numbering over 20,000 in the city, have a history of biting people. They’ve also been known to break into hospitals to pull out I.V. feeding tubes and drink the liquid themselves (because monkeys are diabolical like that). Somewhat more impressive is that the monkeys have a political agenda and actually killed the deputy mayor of New Delhi by pushing him off a balcony.

Unlike most riots, this one was fought the old-fashioned way, with more monkeys. Langurs, which are just bigger monkeys, have been brought into the city and strategically placed around important buildings to scare off the nuisance monkeys. Never has a more awesome solution to a problem been devised.

Check out the article here: 5 Unlikely Reason for Riots – Thanks Alex!

The cheeky monkeys – who are known for tearing off the odd wiper or wing mirror – have been targeting cars carrying the roof boxes before pouncing on the unsuspecting visitors, who are forced to watch helplessly as their things disappear. [...]

‘Their technique involves the largest baboons jumping up and down on the box, flexing it until the lock bursts open, then the rest of the baboons pile in to see what they can find,’ Mr Ross said.

‘Obviously, we’re well used to them helping themselves to the odd wing mirror or wiper blade, but this has taken things to a whole new level.

‘Let’s face it, nobody wants to see a baboon running up a tree with their underwear.’

The Daily Mail has the story and pics: Link (Photo: Cavendish Press) – via Asylum

Legend has it that monkeys were first used to collect tea ten centuries ago, because upon seeing it’s master trying to reach some tea growing wild on a mountain face, the monkey climbed up the steep face and collected the tea growing there and brought it down to his master.

Monkey-picked tea is now harvested in only one small village in China. Link -via the Presurfer

Got a loved one who loves to monkey around? Do you have an ardent Creationist friend who you’d love to poke a little fun at? Here’s a new T-shirt from the Neatorama Shop that will fit him or her nicely.

The Taxonomy: Keeping the Family in Order T-shirt is designed by the super-talented (and available for hire) Chris Murphy of ChrisM70 Graphic Design. Words by our very own national treasure, Neatoramanaut Kalel.

For more geeky science T-shirts, check out the Neatorama Shop: Link

Martin K, Estate Manager- “She takes out the goats for grazing and brings them back. A shepherd is usually required to accompany the goats all day long and bring them back in these hills. But because of her, manpower can be spared. She is as good as a shepherd. The only thing is that she does not speak, but otherwise carries out all responsibilities.”

They say they feel confident that the goats will be safe when Mani accompanies them.

Mani is said to make a strange sound when she discovers a goat is missing or when danger lurks.

There’s a (non-embeddable) video of the monkey at the link.

Link

image by flickr user eirikref used under creative commons license

Results from a 20 year study on monkeys and their diets show that eating fewer calories can help you live longer. Animals with a restricted diet of 30% were shown to outlive those that were given the freedom to eat what when and how much they wanted. The monkeys also had improved chances of avoiding age related diseases, cancer, diabetes and brain atrophy.

In terms of overall animal health, Weindruch notes, the restricted diet leads to longer lifespan and improved quality of life in old age. “There is a major effect of caloric restriction in increasing survival if you look at deaths due to the diseases of aging,” he says.

The incidence of cancerous tumors and cardiovascular disease in animals on a restricted diet was less than half that seen in animals permitted to eat freely. Remarkably, while diabetes or impaired glucose regulation is common in monkeys that can eat all they want, it has yet to be observed in any animal on a restricted diet. “So far, we’ve seen the complete prevention of diabetes,” says Weindruch.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by coconutnut.

For their study, Endress and colleagues played recordings of made-up English words to a population of captive cotton-top tamarins for roughly 30 minutes a day.

Half of the tamarins were exposed to words with a varied stem but a constant suffix (such as bi-shoy, mo-shoy, and lu-shoy). The other half were exposed to a constant prefix followed by a varied stem (such as shoy-bi, shoy-mo, and shoy-lu). [...]

When tamarins were exposed to words that "broke" the rules they had learned, they looked toward the speaker in a startled manner, observers noted.

The finding is dramatic, Endress explained, because it reveals that our distant cousins seem to have the mental machinery to identify verbal structures like suffixes and prefixes.

Link

See if you can beat my top score (4194, which is woefully low as compared to the top players of Monkey Kick Off): Link

Mr Banda was not peeved, making light of the rude interruption as he sat under a tree in State House grounds.

Journalists laughed as Mr Banda jokingly remonstrated with the offender: "You [monkey] have urinated on my jacket."

"Perhaps these are blessings," he said, looking up at the animal in the tree.

BBC has the video clip: Link

Bloomsday

Mole Day

Just about any kid who took chemistry in high school has participated in a Mole Day or two. To celebrate Avogadro’s constant, 6.02×10 to the 23rd power, chemistry teachers across the country make their students roll into school at 6:02 a.m. on October 23 for extra credit. At least, my chemistry teacher did. Avogadro’s constant, by the way, defines the number of particles in a mole, hence Mole Day. What you do to celebrate Mole Day really depends on the teacher – it can be anything from creating a poster for Mole Day to consuming a mole of water to creating cheesy mole jokes (Who was Avogadro’s favorite character on M*A*S*H*? Father Molecahy, of course).
Picture from MoleDay.org.

Towel Day

You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

Why May 25? It really has no significance to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The reason seems to be that fans wanted to honor Adams shortly after his death the 25th was chosen because it was exactly two weeks later. The date stuck, but TowelDay.org points out this lovely coincidence – “As the universe that Douglas Adams created was full of absurdity and randomness, it may be a fitting choice after all. And if you need an additional reason: if you add the hexadecimal numbers 25 and 5, and convert the result to decimal, you get 42!” Forty two being the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, of course.
Photo from Beny Shlevich.

Pi Day

Hobbit Day

Tolkien Reading Day

Yeah, Tolkien’s so important he gets two days. March 25 is known as Tolkien Reading Day, but it’s also the day of the fall of Sauron. The Tolkien Society encourages fans to get together and read out loud while enjoying a hot toasted bun and a warm drink “in hobbitish comfort.”
Picture from TolkienSociety.org.

Square Root Day

Although this is another mathematical day, it’s a bit more rare than the others: it only occurs when the month and day are the square roots of the last two digits of the year. We had one this year – 03/03/09 – but the next one won’t happen on the calendar until 04/04/16. In fact, there are only nine of them every century: 01/01/01, 02/02/04, 03/03/09, 04/04/16, 05/05/25, 06/06/36, 07/07/49, 08/08/64 and 09/09/81 (I know, you could have figured that out on your own. The first one was celebrated on September 9, 1981, created by a high school teacher named Ron Gordon. Nearly 28 years later, he still serves as the national publicist for Square Root Day and suggests that people commemorate the occasion by consuming radishes or other root vegetables cut into squares.

Monkey Day

Monkey Day, December 14, was created just nine years ago by art students at Michigan State. It celebrates exactly what it sounds like it celebrates: namely, simians. What is there to celebrate about monkeys, you might ask? Lots, according to the Monkey Day website. There’s medical research, animal rights, and that whole evolution thing. But mostly, it’s a day to dress up like a monkey, talk like a monkey, and maybe donate some money to your favorite monkey-related charity. And drink, I imagine. Whatever the reason behind El Dia de Mono, it has some pretty powerful fans: Peter Jackson chose the day to release King Kong in 2005.
Picture from MonkeyDay.com.

Since Osamu Shimomura discovered Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) in jellyfish back in the 1960s (his work earned him the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry along with Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien), the science of biology has never been the same. Since then, this incredibly useful tool (I even used it in my dissertation way back when) has found its way to transgenic pigs, dogs, and even cats.

NatGeo News has a nifty photo gallery of the various "glowing" animals – some of which crossed the line from science into commerce (the fluorescent GloFish). This one above is the GFP Rhesus Macaque Monkey, used to study Huntington’s disease by researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta.

Link – Thanks Marilyn!

Macaque monkeys in Lopburi, Thailand, were observed apparently teaching their young how to floss.  These particular monkeys used human hair from visitors to the shrine.  Because the visitors view the monkeys as divine servants, they allow them to pluck their hair. 

Japanese researchers, led by Nobuo Masataka of the University at Kyoto, focused on 7 female Macaque’s each with one year old infants:

“I was surprised because teaching techniques on using tools properly to a third party are said to be an activity carried out only by humans,” he said.

The study focused on the observation of seven female long-tailed macaques and interaction with their off spring at a colony of monkeys near Bangkok in Thailand.

The practice of teeth flossing doubled and became significantly more elaborate when they were in the presence of infant monkeys, suggesting that they were attempting to teach the technique to the young.

“The study is still at the hypothesis stage,” said Professor Masataka.

“We would like to shift our focus to the baby monkeys to check whether the mothers’ actions are effectively helping them learn how to clean their teeth.”

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. And in this case, with a coconut. Here’s the story of a monkey named Brother Kwan, who was overworked by his master climbing trees and fetching coconuts to sell:

The newspaper said  that Leilit Janchoom, 48, had beaten the monkey whenever he showed any hesitance to climb a tree.

But the monkey – it is claimed – apparently found the work boring, strenuous and unrewarding.

So, the monkey chucked a well-aimed coconut on Janchoom, and killed him!

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by see_you_@_de_pawty_Richter.