This is how it starts: Chimpanzees living in the West African savannah have been observed fashioning deadly spears from sticks and using the tools to hunt small mammals -- the first routine production of deadly weapons ever observed in animals other than humans. ... Using their hands and teeth, the chimpanzees were repeatedly seen tearing the side branches off long, straight sticks, peeling back the bark and sharpening one end. Then, grasping the weapons in a "power grip," they jabbed them into tree-branch hollows where bush babies -- small, monkeylike mammals -- sleep during the day. "It was really alarming how forceful it was," said lead researcher Jill D. Pruetz of Iowa State University, adding that it reminded her of the murderous shower scene in the Alfred Hitchcock movie "Psycho." "It was kind of scary." Full Article. This is cool.
Well, GWB wants to spread democracy and freedom too all chimps. He'll destroy their habitat if he has too but freedom will reign supreme and spread to other animal enclaves. He will leave it up to the military to figure out how to keep the insurgent chimps from taking control. And, we all know how that turns out...chimp suicide bombers.
But while a few chimpanzees have been observed throwing rocks...and a few others have been known to swing simple clubs, only people have been known to craft tools expressly to hunt prey.
Those violent Chimps.. Why can't they be like their Bonobo cousins and just have sex all day. Make Love not War!
They've also discovered that another monkey uses simple yet distinct enough vocalizations to be considered words. I'm too lazy to give you a source but it's in a recent issue of National Geographic. Interesting stuff.
Well this has been known for years. It is also known that Chimps have wars, were one group has a raiding party moving into a neighbour territory and killing every chimp they find. Some groups of chimps have been known to actually "conquer" parts of land this way.
Not surprising, I think Chimps are still considered our closest relative. They've been known to use sticks as tools before, like dipping a twig into an ant hill and then eating the ants off of it.
