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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
 Posted - 02/23/2007 : 01:49:04
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chimpanzees have been seen using spears to hunt bush babies, U.S. researchers said on Thursdayquote:
in a study that demonstrates a whole new level of tool use and planning by our closest living relatives.
Perhaps even more intriguing, it was only the females who fashioned and used the wooden spears, Jill Pruetz and Paco Bertolani of Iowa State University reported.
Bertolani saw an adolescent female chimp use a spear to stab a bush baby as it slept in a tree hollow, pull it out and eat it.
Pruetz thought it was a fluke when Bertolani saw the adolescent female hunt and kill the bush baby, a tiny nocturnal primate.
But then she saw almost the same thing. "I saw the behavior over the course of 19 days almost daily," she said.
No comment needed.
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Edited by - beskeptigal on 02/23/2007 01:49:26
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2007 : 03:28:53 [Permalink]
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Really neat! One has to wonder how many times that line of chimps has invented the spear, and lost it again. Or whether they may have been using it for millions if years. I would not mind at all calling those brilliant chimps my distant relatives.
Of course the Creationists, if the don't just try to ignore this, will just say the researchers were wrong, and were actually watching a tribe of pygmies.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2007 : 05:54:58 [Permalink]
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| Awww, they are just aping us. |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2007 : 06:01:11 [Permalink]
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| Well dont burn your holy books just yet people, this behavior was seen only by one person and was not documented. Still a cool idea though... |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Original_Intent
SFN Regular
USA
609 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2007 : 06:08:00 [Permalink]
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I can see it. They have been using sticks for all sorts of things (measuring water levels, digging, rooting out bugs. The stick is their friend.
I'd love to see more.
Peace
Joe |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2007 : 06:08:38 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Well dont burn your holy books just yet people, this behavior was seen only by one person and was not documented. Still a cool idea though...
Agree..
But why not? Chimps have hands nearly as dexterous as our own and they are certainly smart enough to learn. Fishing for termites is a learned behavior actively taught (by example) by mothers to offspring.
The Theory of Evolution sez: "If necessity demands, species will compensate." It just might take a while...
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2007 : 22:45:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Well dont burn your holy books just yet people, this behavior was seen only by one person and was not documented. Still a cool idea though...
No Pops, it was well documented.
Here's the original paper. Savanna Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes verus, Hunt with Tools
And the abstract and access to the text version if you don't want to download the pdf file.
There are also links to a couple videos. I didn't want to watch a bushbaby get stabbed and eaten so I haven't viewed those.
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| Edited by - beskeptigal on 02/23/2007 22:48:00 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2007 : 23:06:12 [Permalink]
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It seems that the bushbaby is actually inside a hollow tree. The first video shows a stabbing motion, but that's about all I could make out. It's not particularly impressive to this layman's eye, except that it's quite obvious that the chimp not only knows how to kill with a crooked stick, but also knows that jumping up and down on the tree way far up the trunk will crack it open down near where the prey is. That's impressive.
The second and third videos are of nothing but a couple of chimps eating. Real yawners. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2007 : 06:39:24 [Permalink]
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So, let me get this straight: Chimps females have figured out that putting pointy ends on sticks makes them into handy hunting tools. Those gals are so smart! I gotta get me one of those sticks, and a chimp technician to sharpen it for me!
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2007 : 12:26:53 [Permalink]
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| Ahem, touche. Im still more impressed with the grey parrot, but I guess its not the chimps fault that they dont have the right throat to mimic our vocalizations |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2007 : 15:06:35 [Permalink]
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The word seems to have travled fast and far. quote:
Armed Chimps Draw Mixed Reviews
NRA: "Welcome to the Club!"
Seems everybody has thoughts on it, even some who don't think.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2007 : 17:34:50 [Permalink]
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Nicely written!
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2007 : 23:03:39 [Permalink]
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That's great, filthy.  |
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular
Canada
510 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2007 : 09:11:16 [Permalink]
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| It is a logical extension from fishing for termites with stick -primarily done be females - males get there protien by hunting monkeys - so I am not surpised it was a female doing this. |
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King
History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms
"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler
"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson |
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smoke
New Member
USA
32 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2007 : 00:17:22 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070222/sc_nm/chimps_hunting_dc_1WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chimpanzees have been seen using spears to hunt bush babies
And when we see crows using sticks to do the same, we don't say anything. |
He does not answer when men cry out because of the arrogance of the wicked. Indeed, God does not listen to their empty plea; the Almighty pays no attention to it.
Job 35:12-13 |
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