What’s the link between social life and brain structure? Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, the Stem Cell and Brain Research Institute at Inserm, and elsewhere are now one step closer to understanding this connection for rhesus macaques. A grooming chain of adult female rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago, an island off the coast of…
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Chimpanzees are known to interact with dead members of their species, revisiting corpses, and even showing mourning-like behavior. Elephants are also known to do this, and will even interact with elephant skeletons. Chimpanzee skull studied for conspecific recognition [Credit: KyotoU/Andre Goncalves] But do chimpanzees show recognition and preferences in the case of conspecific skeletons: belonging…
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A study into tooth wear in a group of wild Japanese macaques has significant implications for the study of human evolution, a University of Otago study has shown. Macroscopic ridges on the outer surface of upper central macaque incisors [Credit: Ian Towle wt al., 2022] Lead author Dr Ian Towle and Dr Carolina Loch, of…
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Untrained, captive orangutans can complete two major steps in the sequence of stone tool use: striking rocks together and cutting using a sharp stone, according to a study by Alba Motes-Rodrigo at the University of Tubingen in Germany and colleagues, published in the open-access journal Loui (the juvenile male orangutan) using the core as an…
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Tooth decay is a common and unfortunate problem for many of us, but two University of Otago studies show it is also an issue for other primates, as well as our fossil relatives and ancestors. Chimpanzee in Uganda eating figs by creating a wadge in the front of the mouth[Credit: Kris H. Sabbi] Dr Ian…
Songbirds share the human sense of rhythm, but it is a rare trait in non-human mammals. An international research team led by senior investigators Marco Gamba from the University of Turin and MPI’s Andrea Ravignani set out to look for musical abilities in primates. “There is longstanding interest in understanding how human musicality evolved, but…
The first-ever Africa-wide assessment of great apes — gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees — finds that human factors, including roads, population density and GDP, determine abundance more than ecological factors such as forest cover. Credit: Kyle de Nobrega The findings are published in the American Journal of Primatology by a team of scientists led by the…
To prosper, most great apes need lush forests in Africa (bonobos, chimpanzees, and gorillas) or Southeast Asia (orangutans), except for some groups of chimpanzees that live in savannahs, habitats characterised by high temperatures and very low seasonal rainfall. Savannah chimpanzees in a cave in Sabe (Guinea) [Credit: Jane Goodall Institute Spain & Senegal] Adriana Hernandez,…
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The oldest known footprints of pre-humans were found on the Mediterranean island of Crete and are at least six million years old, says an international team of researchers from Germany, Sweden, Greece, Egypt and England, led by Tübingen scientists Uwe Kirscher and Madelaine Böhme of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the…
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Our DNA is very similar to that of the chimpanzee, which in evolutionary terms is our closest living relative. Stem cell researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now found a previously overlooked part of our DNA, so-called non-coded DNA, that appears to contribute to a difference which, despite all our similarities, may explain why…
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