"Ape Genius" on NOVA last night

[Deborah Harrell]

> I wrote:

<snip> 
> More on those spear-makers:
> 
>
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2008-04/chimps-with-spears/roach-text.html

[from a reporter's visit with researcher Jill Pruetz]

Shades of a short story, title and author not
recalled, of granting legal status to a
cigarette-smoking chimp (who had learned to delay
gratification, IIRC):

"...New Zealand, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the
United Kingdom have all passed legislation limiting
experimentation on great apes, and the Balearic
Islands in Spain passed a resolution in 2007 granting
them basic legal rights. In 2006 an Austrian animal
rights organization submitted an application to a
district court in Mödling to appoint a legal guardian
for a chimp named Hiasl. The strategy was to establish
"legal person" status for the hairy defendant..."

Chimp behavior snippets:

"...I had not known that chimpanzee yawns are
contagious—both among each other and to humans. I had
known that chimps laugh, but I did not know that they
get upset if someone laughs at them.* I knew that
captive chimps spit, but I hadn't known that they,
like us, seem to consider spitting the most extreme
expression of disgust—one reserved, interestingly, for
humans. I knew that a captive ape might care for a
kitten if you gave one to it, but had not heard of a
wild chimpanzee taking one in, as Tia did with a genet
kitten. The list goes on. Chimps get up to get snacks
in the middle of the night. They lie on their backs
and do "the airplane" with their children. They kiss.
Shake hands. Pick their scabs before they're
ready...As a colleague of Pruetz's once said to her,
"A chimp takes a crap in the forest, and someone
publishes a paper about it." (No exaggeration. One
paper has a section on chimpanzees' use of "leaf
napkins": "This hygienic technology is directed to
their bodily fluids (blood, semen, feces, urine,
snot). ... Their use ranges from delicate dabbing to
vigorous wiping..." 


*Cats also recognize the difference between laughing
with (as when they're playing with you and being
silly) and being made fun of (as when they completely
muff a usually-gracefully-executed move), and when
your laughter has nothing whatsoever to do with them
(as at the TV or a book).

Debbi
More Fodder For The Humorists Maru   ;)


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