All the study participants watched 30 minutes of the Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, listening to the dialogue through headphones. The humans watched it once and the monkeys saw it six times, during which the participants’ eye movements were scanned and their neural activity monitored via functional magnetic resonance imaging.

The researchers found some similarities in brain activity locations among the species, but several differences, too. Monkey brain areas that fired up during movements on screen were quiescent in the humans, yet both species shared activity in other areas. This is a function of the species‘ separate evolutions — brain regions that may once have been very similar have adapted to focus on different tasks.

“The method may clarify whether specific functions are preserved in areas that anatomically correspond, are absent in one of the two species, or are shifted to other cortical locations,” Mantini and colleagues wrote. This, in turn, could shed light on how human cognitive function evolved, as compared to cognitive function in our closest cousins.

Which movie would you compel monkeys to watch?

Link | Image: United Artists

Humans love to hold a warm, furry cat in their arms or in their laps (with some exceptions, of course) but humans aren’t the only primates who like pets. Monkeys and apes seem to have a similar affinity to cats, as you’ll see in a gallery of cute pictures at Environmental Graffiti. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Salim Virji)

We’ve all seen pictures of monkeys grooming each other. At first glance, it appears that it’s a tradeoff -you groom me, I’ll groom you. But monkeys will groom cats, pigs, deer, all kinds of fur! It may be a habit, or maybe the monkeys are looking for delicious parasite snacks. See a collection of different species willing to sit through a monkey treatment at Environmental Graffiti. Link

“The computer program I wrote compares that monkey’s gibberish to every work of Shakespeare to see if it actually matches a small portion of what Shakespeare wrote. If it does match, the portion of gibberish that matched Shakespeare is marked with green,” Andersen explained on his blog. “The parts of Shakespeare that have not been found are colored white. This process is repeated over and over until the monkeys have created every work of Shakespeare through random gibberish.”

Anderson developed the project to test Amazon’s web servers, but also to satisfy his curiosity of whether an infinite number of monkeys could randomly reproduce Shakespeare’s work by pecking away on an infinite number of typewriters.

Link -via Geekologie | Photo by Flickr user Jemima G used under Creative Commons license

Did you know that parrots name their babies? Or that monkeys that understand money immediately use the idea to solicit prostitution? As it turns out, animals are a lot more like humans than many of us ever imagined.

Link

While this little guy might not be in a mask like the others, I love this little guy’s fashion statement. Be sure to check out the rest of the cuties at the link.

Link

Photographer David Slater had his picture taken by a crested black macaque in an Indonesian national park when the curious little critter figured out how to trigger the shutter release button on his tripod mounted camera. Soon, it seemed as if the monkeys actually knew that they were on to something, and they continued to snap shot after shot, showing an intelligence and problem solving ability macaques had been assumed not to possess. What’s next for the shutterbug macaque, a job directing in Hollywood?

Link

The woman brought along the palm-sized marmoset to a proceeding in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court in Amherst County, Va. Apparently, officials actually didn’t notice the clinging creature until the woman went to an office to do some paperwork.

“I can’t understand why the deputy didn’t see her – she was peeking out,” the woman told The Lynchburg News & Advance.

When the woman referred to a daughter, a puzzled official asked where the daughter was and the woman pulled the monkey out of her bra, the newspaper reported.

Link via Theresa Coleman‘s Facebook page | Photo: Lynchburg News & Advance

A team of researchers taught macaques how to maneuver a joystick to indicate whether the pixel density on a screen was sparse or dense. Given a pixel scenario, the monkeys would maneuver a joystick to a letter S (for sparse) or D (for dense). They were given a treat when they selected the correct answer, but when they were wrong, the game paused for a couple seconds. A third possible answer, though, allowed the monkeys to select a question mark, and thereby forgo the pause (and potentially get more treats).

And as John David Smith, a researcher at SUNY Buffalo, and Michael Beran, a researcher at Georgia State University, announced at the AAAS meeting this weekend, the macaques selected the question mark just as humans do when they encounter a mind-stumping question. As Smith told the BBC, “Monkeys apparently appreciate when they are likely to make an error…. They seem to know when they don’t know.”

The same experiment with capuchin monkeys returned different results: they didn’t use the question mark button. Link -via J-Walk Blog

(YouTube link)

Would you like me to read you the specials? Well, that’s unfortunate because I’m a monkey in a ladymask! Yeah, bet you haven’t seen anything this weird since that stranger gave you those “aspirin” at that Happy Mondays show back in ’94, huh? No, but I’m sure the Health Department is totally OK with this.

This monkey works in a Japanese restaurant like it’s no big deal.

It looks like something from the darkest corners of DeviantArt, but it’s just Japan being Japan.

According to a blog post written by the folks who took the video, the restaurant had terrible service. Imagine.

Link

A Dog, A Cat and A Mouse

Perhaps one of the most famous strange animal friendships involves Greg Pike’s three companions, Booger, Kitty and Mousie, who constantly ride on top of one another. His animals were named by a group of school children who Greg gave the opportunity to name.

Pike is a busker who receives monetary compensation from passersby who wish to photograph his bizarre animal trio. He currently resides in San Francisco, but he and his pets previously lived in a small border town in Colorado, Arizona, in Santa Fe, New Mexico and in Santa Barbara, so if you think you may have seen him in person and you happened to be in one of those places, then you almost certainly saw the real act, not an impersonator.

Greg likes to think of them as a symbol of peace, if these three national enemies can get along, why can’t we humans. If you like the act, you can always make a donation via his website.

Source Video link

A Dog and An Owl

When Stuart and Caroline Ward bought an owl named Boobah right before her German shepherd, Hazel, gave birth to puppies, they worried the dog would be overprotective of the litter and act aggressive towards the owl. Fortunately, the exact opposite was true. Hazel immediately started to look after her owl friend who took to riding on the dog’s back for rides. The pair soon became inseparable and Boobah even tried to suckle milk from Hazel like the young puppies did.

Source

A Monkey and A Pigeon

Many people have seen this image without ever seeing the equally sweet story. The 12 week-old macaque was brought to an animal sanctuary after he was discovered close to death after being abandoned by his mother. After his rescue, his health improved, but he remained listless until he struck up a friendship with an unlikely suspect –a white pigeon. The two were so close keepers almost never found them more than a few feet from one another’s side. The friendship managed to bring the monkey back from the brink and he displayed a whole new attitude.

Source

A Blind Dog and A Cat

While some consider cats and dogs to be mortal enemies, it is still fairly common to see the two animals become close friends after living together. As common as cat and dog friendships are, it takes a special bond to capture the interest of a nation, but Cashew and Libby were that close.

Cashew was an older yellow lab that had gone blind and deaf in her old age, but his feline friend, Libby, didn’t let that stand in the way of their friendship. Libby served as a seeing-eye cat for her elderly friend, leading him to his food and watching over him while the pair slept next to each other. The cat would even follow her friend on walks to make sure he got back safely.

After Cashew passed, Libby has shown no interest in other dogs and has been known to hang around at her friend’s favorite nap spots. The cat’s utter loyalty to her friend earner her the Cat of the Year from the ASPCA, a high honor with so many great kitties in the country.

Source Image via ASPCA

Two Dogs and A Goat

While the header for this one has the makings of a great animal sitcom, it’s actually a true story that warms your heart. It al started when a stray goat and dog were picked up by animal control outside of a wedding chapel in Dallas. They were brought to the East Lake Pet Orphanage, where volunteers soon saw the pair was inseparable. Unfortunately, Texas law requires that abandoned pets must be kept with animals of the same species, so a sheriff’s deputy took away the goat, named Minnelli. If the goat stayed unclaimed, she would have been sold at a livestock auction.

Fortunately, the story already hit the papers and the Dallas County Commissioner assured the public Minnelli would not end up on someone’s dinner table. A few days later, the animal’s owner came forward. The family also owned a three-legged yellow lab and could no longer afford to take care of their animals, so they signed over the rights to all three pets to the East Lake Pet Orphanage.

The shelter received hundreds of adoption requests for the unlikely trio, which they then narrowed down to the five best applicants. Representatives from the shelter visited each home to ensure the pets were given to the best possible candidates. Eventually, they were adopted by Norman and Sandra Williams who owned three acres of land and plenty of other critters to keep their new family members company.

Source: #1, #2

A Bear and A Cat

In 2001, Muschi the cat casually strolled into the cage of an Asian black bear at the Berlin Zoo. The brave feline headed right for the bear’s food dish and started to eat lunch. It might seem like that would be the end of the cat’s story, but instead, Mausi the bear immediately took to the feline and the two became fast friends.

Years later, the two are still inseparable. They not only share meals, but they play, sleep and cuddle together on a daily basis.

Source: #1, #2

A Lion, A Tiger and A Bear

No, we’re not off to see the wizard, instead we’re off to Georgia where a raid on a drug dealer’s house resulted in some unexpected contraband seizures. When authorities went through the home, they discovered a lion, a tiger and a bear cub, all only two months old. When they were brought to the Noah’s Ark Animal Rescue Center, employees decided to keep the three cubs together.

Eight years later, the three share a specially built enclosure designed to enrich the family’s lives and to let viewers enjoy the unique friendship. Baloo, the 1,000 pound bear, Shere Khan, the 350 pound tiger and Leo, a 350 lion, enjoy play fighting sleeping and eating together. At night, they sleep on top of each other for comfort. Due to the animal’s sleep schedules, Baloo and Shere Khan are the closest, as Leo sleeps throughout most of the day while the other two play.

Source Image via WebEcoist

A Fish and A Dog

Sometimes animal friendships are divided not only by species, but by living environments. Chino the dog and Falstaff the koi’s friendship is even more remarkable because neither can truly live in one another’s world. Chino’s owners say he was always curious about fish but his favorite was Falstaff, who was the only fish to reciprocate the feeling. As Chino laid on the rocks of the backyard koi pond, staring into the water, Falstaff eagerly swam up to him, even nibbling on his paws if they happened to dip in the water.

Source

A Kangaroo and A Dog

When a mother kangaroo was struck by a car and killed with her baby inside of her pouch, the baby was facing certain death. But a terrier named Rex stopped that terrible fate from happening. Rex was on a walk with his owner when he passed the dead kangaroo. A little while later, he returned to the spot, removed the baby from the pouch and dropped it at the feet of his shocked owner. The joey remained calm and even started snuggling the dog, who responded by licking the baby.

While the two hit it off quite well, Rex Jr., as the young kangaroo was named, was brought to the Jirrahlinga Wildlife Sanctuary, where he will be released back into the wild when he is 18 months old. While the pair’s friendship was short, it meant all the difference to Rex Jr. who wouldn’t be alive without his canine hero.

Source

An Elephant and A Dog

Dogs can apparently be any species’ best friend, not just humans. Case in point, the exceptional bond between Tara the elephant and Bella the dog.  The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee doesn’t limit its care of animals to just elephants. On top of the many pachyderms they’ve saved, they’ve also take in about a dozen or so stray dogs. For the most part, the dogs and elephants make friendships with other animals of their species and ignore the other animals, but Bella and Tarra are different. They chose each other.

Tarra and Bella played together, ate together and even slept beside each other, but when Bella suffered a spinal cord injury, Tarra showed just how dedicated she was to her friend. For weeks, the elephant sat patiently just outside the sanctuary office where the dog was recuperating. After she was recuperated, the couple made a happy reunion and once again strolled and played through the park’s 2,700 acres.

Sources: #1, #2 Video link

Tigers and Orangutans

In the wild, Sumerian tigers would be happy to snack on a baby orangutans, but when you put two pairs of abandoned cubs together, natural instincts can sometimes fly out the window. Instead of attacking the young primates who were housed in the same nursery room, the two tiger cubs find them to be the best of bunk mates.

The animals are constantly monitored so any potential problems can be taken care of before there are any serious dangers, but so far the animals have all gotten along wonderfully. During the days, the orangutans spend the day swinging through the trees while the kittens take naps. At night, the group settles down to sleep, cuddling one another for warmth.

Source Video link

A Lion and A Meerkat

Invoking the spirit of Lion King, Zinzi the lion was only one day old when her mother started refusing to feed her, requiring the intervention of local zookeepers. After she was brought in to the zoo, she quickly attracted a fan, Bob the meerkat. Bob started following Zinzi and snuggling up with her during nap time. Quickly enough, they started doing everything together. Unlike the real Lion King friendship between Simba and Timon, one can assume that Zinzi hasn’t taken to eating bugs in place of meat as that would probably deprive him of too much energy.

Source

A Hamster and A Snake

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When Aochan the rat snake started to refuse to eat frozen mice, zookeepers put a dwarf hamster into his cage to whet his appetite. Shockingly, Aochan made friends with the little critter instead of chowing down. The pair became close friends and even started to share a cage together. Eventually Aochan’s diet picked back up, but he never showed any interest in trying to snack on his friend. Keepers named the hamster Gohan, after a common Japanese rice dish.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. Gohan sometimes even climbs onto Aochan to take a nap on his back,” one of the keepers said.

Source Video link

There are plenty more adorable critter pairings out there, feel free to share your favorite stories in the comments!

I didn’t know until just now, but December 14th is Monkey Day! {wiki} The day is set aside to raise awareness about monkey issues, monkeys in the news, and ways you can help monkeys (apes and other primates are included as well). In honor of the occasion, holiday founder Casey Sorrow put together a roundup of monkey news, links, and videos from the past year for your education and entertainment. Link

(Image credit: 123 Greetings)

The monkeys, aged seven months and three months, were dressed in blue uniforms made from traditional local fabrics complete with mini hats before being formally appointed station masters and “special city residents” by the local mayor.[...]

It is not the first time in Japan that animals have found themselves at the helm of a railway station: Tama, the tortoiseshell cat, is famous in Japan as a longstanding station master of Kishi station in Wakayama prefecture.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo: Kyodo

From Wednesday, 10 langurs will be put on duty outside several Games venues in the Indian capital, with the swimming complex seen as particularly vulnerable to monkey misbehavior, an official said.

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has a regular team of 28 langurs which are used to scare away their weaker brethren in VIP areas of the city.[...]

Monkeys are a common sight in the verdant Indian capital, where they routinely scamper through government offices, courts and even police stations and hospitals.

Link via Hit & Run | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user mckaysavage used under Creative Commons license

The Public Safety Department said in a statement Monday that 38-year-old Roberto Cabrera arrived on a commercial flight Friday from Lima, Peru, when authorities noticed the bulge and conducted a body search.

The department says Cabrera was carrying the 6-inch titi monkeys in pouches attached to the girdle.

Two of the monkeys were dead.

Cabrera was arrested on charges of trafficking an endangered species.

Cabrera told authorities he was carrying the monkeys in a suitcase but decided to put them in his girdle “so the X-rays wouldn’t hurt them.”

Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Lea Maimone)

See also: 10 Weird Items People Tried to Smuggle

Seven of the nine monkeys in the study received the same amount of the drug over a six-day period. Three of the seven monkeys got the drug every other day, while four received it daily. One monkey in each group served as a control animal and didn’t receive the drug.

Analysis of the treated monkeys revealed that, ten days after having been infected with Ebola, the first group of monkeys had very low levels of the virus in their blood. Researchers were unable to detect the virus at all in the group that had received daily doses.

“The siRNAs inhibited the replication of the virus and completely protected the monkeys against death from hemorrhagic fever,” Geisbert noted. “This has never been done before.”

Link | Image (unrelated): CDC | Previously: A Vaccine for the Ebola Virus?

However, chimpanzees in this study went beyond the basic tenets of the social contract and demonstrated what could be considered the foundation of social solidarity. In 95 trials chimpanzees that received a grape were significantly more likely to refuse the high-value reward when their group mate only received a carrot (p = 0.008). Even those who benefitted from inequality recognized that the situation was unfair and they refused to enjoy their own reward if it meant someone else had to suffer.

This particular behavior was not seen in the monkeys. Did a sense of fairness evolve along with cooperation among higher primates? Link

(image credit: Flickr user Owen Booth)

With no danger in sight, males make three call sequences. The first – a pair of booms – is made when the monkey is far away from the group and can’t see them. It’s a summons that draws the rest of the group towards him. Adding a krak-oo to the end of the boom pair changes its meaning. Rather than “Come here”, the signal now means “Watch out for that branch”. Whenever the males cried “Boom-boom-krak-oo”, other monkeys knew that there were falling trees or branches around (or fighting monkeys overhead that could easily lead to falling vegetation).

Interspersing the booms and krak-oos with some hok-oos changes the meaning yet again. This call means “Prepare for battle”, and it’s used when rival groups or strange males have showed up. In line with this translation, the hok-oo calls are used far more often towards the edge of the monkeys’ territories than they are in the centre. The most important thing about this is that hok-oo is essentially meaningless. The monkeys never say it in isolation – they only use it to change the meaning of another call.

As complex as their language is, Campbell’s monkeys can only communicate things that they see or experience in the present. Link

Is this the beginning of the end of monkey sexual discrimination? Only time will tell.

Link

(Links open in a new browser window/tab)

	Amazing one-man Looping Song by an Indie Musician The description of this video says he made it all in one take- and it really makes a great song in the end. Give it a minute for the looping to kick in. Link
	The Big Bang explained in Two Minutes Here’s a really nice concise explanation on how the big bang worked – has nice accompanying CGI that helps in the explanation. Link
	The Sophisticated Hunting Methods of Wild Owls Amazing, specialized hunting machines – that poor lemming never had a chance. Link
	Pit Bull Viciously Attacks News Anchor With Love and Slobber News anchor Randene Neill is repeatedly and savagely licked, almost to death, by a pit bull named Ginger. So much for the pit bull’s nasty reputation. Link
	Monkeys in a swimming pool They’re actually great little swimmers, and they stay underwater too. Link

For more the web’s most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift. ]]> http://www.neatorama.com/2009/08/13/videosift-clips-of-the-week-35/feed/ 8 http://www.neatorama.com/2009/07/28/the-monkey-aristocracy/ http://www.neatorama.com/2009/07/28/the-monkey-aristocracy/#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:29:30 +0000 Miss Cellania http://www.neatorama.com/?p=25434 The Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey has a permanent display called “Musical Machines & Living Dolls”, featuring over 700 antique automata, including quite a few fancily-dressed mechanical monkeys from France.

Though largely lost on passing schoolchildren and tourists at the Morris Museum, these monkeys were once a scathing critique on French aristocracy. There is a monkey on a early sort of bicycle called a velocipede, a monkey harpist, a monkey violinist, two small monkey musicians, and an incredible monkey dandy under a large glass dome. All are dressed in fine silks with hair done up in the style of French Royalty. These automata were a post-French-revolution joke on the former rulers and current dandies of France. So popular was the theme of foolish aristocratic monkeys that it was common in French homes, and whole rooms were decorated around the theme.

Read more about the mechanical monkey fad at Curious Expeditions. Link

The Vervet Monkeys of St. kitts are known to raid local bars for a drink or two. Studies have found that the percentage of alcoholism in these monkeys matches the percentage of the human population – most drink in moderation, 12% are steady drinkers, 5% drink to the last drop and some are even teetotalers!

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by dradell.

These pigmy marmoset monkeys are fantastic samples of animals rarely seen in the wild. Their bodies are about 5-6 inches tall and they have claws instead of nails.

Link

I know all animals are beautiful in a “life is beautiful, so are the creatures living it” kind of way, but this Snub-Nosed Monkey is the creepiest thing ever. The lack of lips, the slits for nostrils, it looks like a skull. Gross!

Link