chimpanzees

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When One Chimpanzee Pees, Another Might Follow
Researchers Spent 600 Hours
Watching Chimpanzees Pee
new study
Jan 22, 2025 12:50 PM CST

Researchers Spent 600 Hours Watching Chimpanzees Pee

Study finds urination is a slightly contagious behavior

(Newser) - Watch someone yawn and there's a chance you'll yawn, too. Watch someone pee and ... well, if you're a chimpanzee, there's a chance you'll end up urinating as well. So finds a new paper published Monday in Current Biology that NPR reports spun out of a...

Monkeys Will Never Randomly Type Shakespeare
Monkeys Will Never
Randomly Type Shakespeare
NEW STUDY
Nov 1, 2024 10:54 AM CDT

Monkeys Will Never Randomly Type Shakespeare

It would take 7 universe lifetimes to complete the Bard's works, mathematicians say

(Newser) - The old adage goes that if you give an army of chimpanzees typewriters, one will eventually write the complete works of William Shakespeare by chance. The so-called infinite monkey theorem is a thought experiment meant to demonstrate that events with a non-zero probability will occur over infinite time. In other...

Chimps' Chewing of Medicinal Plants Is No Fluke
Chimpanzee, Heal Thyself
NEW STUDY
Jun 21, 2024 8:38 AM CDT

Chimpanzee, Heal Thyself

Researchers describe evidence of self-medication in Uganda

(Newser) - Sick or wounded chimpanzees can't go to the doctor, per se, but they can and apparently do serve as their own. In a new study, researchers describe the medicinal properties of various plants eaten by poorly chimps in the wild, "providing some of the strongest evidence yet that...

Chimp Has Been Carrying Dead Infant for 3 Months

Possible mourning ritual observed at Spain's Bioparc Valencia

(Newser) - A chimpanzee born at a zoo in Valencia, Spain, survived only two weeks before dying in February. Three months later, the infant's decomposing body remains in its enclosure at Bioparc Valencia with no current plan to remove it, despite the alarm caused to visitors. That's because the infant'...

Ability to Joke Isn't Exclusive to Humans
Humans Aren't the Only
Jokers on the Planet
NEW STUDY
Feb 15, 2024 8:46 AM CST

Humans Aren't the Only Jokers on the Planet

Teasing apes suggest 'cognitive prerequisites for joking' evolved at least 13M years ago

(Newser) - You would think poking or slapping a great ape would be ill-advised. But the young chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans who tease their adult counterparts are rarely met with aggression. That's because, according to a new study, even great apes know when a joke is a joke. Researchers analyzed...

Chimps, Bonobos Recognize Friends After 25 Years Apart
It's the 'Longest-Lasting
Nonhuman Memory'
NEW STUDY
Dec 19, 2023 7:31 AM CST

It's the 'Longest-Lasting Nonhuman Memory'

Chimps, bonobos appear to recognize ex-groupmates after decades apart

(Newser) - Long-term memory goes back a long, long time: perhaps some 7 million years, according to new research on humans' closest living relatives. Researchers led by Laura Simone Lewis, a comparative psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, showed 26 bonobos and chimpanzees side-by-side images of strangers and former groupmates, including...

Getting Hot Flashes? Commiserate With a Chimp
Getting Hot
Flashes?
Commiserate
With a Chimp
NEW STUDY
Oct 27, 2023 12:06 PM CDT

Getting Hot Flashes? Commiserate With a Chimp

These primates go through menopause just like humans, some whales, researchers say

(Newser) - Female humans aren't the only mammals known to go through menopause, then live for many years after—some whale species also undergo the process, which is when menstruation stops for good. Now, in what the Washington Post calls a "landmark discovery," researchers say chimpanzees have also joined...

Watch Chimp's Reaction to Seeing Sky for First Time

Vanilla in awe upon being released into the open in Florida, after 28 years of being kept in cages

(Newser) - Imagine being alive for nearly three decades without ever seeing the sun. That's been the fate of Vanilla, a former research chimpanzee who's spent her entire 28 years inside cages—until recently, when she was transferred to a Florida primates sanctuary and was released into the open for...

3 Chimpanzees Shot Dead After Zoo Escape

Swedish zoo warned area residents to stay inside with doors, windows locked

(Newser) - Five chimpanzees escaped from a zoo enclosure in Sweden and it did not end well for four of them. Authorities say four of the animals were shot, three of them fatally, while the fifth made its own way back to the enclosure, joining three other chimpanzees that didn't leave,...

Only Humans Were Known to Do This—Until Now
Only Humans Were Known
to Do This—Until Now
NEW STUDY
Feb 8, 2022 11:17 AM CST

Only Humans Were Known to Do This—Until Now

Chimpanzees appear to self-medicate with insects: study

(Newser) - Officials with the Ozouga Chimpanzee Project at Loango National Park in Gabon first spotted a female chimp taking a tiny winged insect from her mouth and placing it in a wound on her son's foot in November 2019. She then removed the bug and repeated the process two more...

Chimp Held on Oregon Ranch for 17 Years Is Killed After Attack

Sheriff's deputy got permission from animal's owner first

(Newser) - An Oregon woman called police Sunday morning to report that the chimpanzee she owned had escaped its cage and attacked her daughter. A responding Umatilla County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed the animal after getting permission from the owner, Oregon Live reports. The 50-year-old victim had become trapped in...

63-Year-Old Chimpanzee Dies
Zoo Loses Chimpanzee, 63
Jun 7, 2021 6:40 PM CDT

Zoo Loses Chimpanzee, 63

Cobby had been at the San Francisco Zoo since the 1960s

(Newser) - Cobby, 63, who was "part of San Francisco" and the oldest male chimpanzee in an accredited US zoo, has died. The San Francisco Zoo & Gardens said in a statement that cause of death was not known, though officials cited old age. Cobby had been ill, the Guardian reports....

Chimps have Been Dying. Now We May Know Why

A bacterium may be the culprit

(Newser) - Researchers have identified a bacterium that they believe is responsible for a “new and always fatal” illness that has been killing chimpanzees in Sierra Leone, USA Today reports. The disease—Epizootic Neurologic and Gastroenteric Syndrome, or ENGS—has killed at least 53 chimps at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, per...

Texas Has a Problem Primate —and a Giant Mystery

Unconfirmed run-ins with an ornery chimp, monkey, or other creature reported in Texas

(Newser) - No one knows where it came from, how it got out, or even for sure what it is (or if it is)—but an animal said to be on the loose in Texas is causing a ruckus. The New York Times perfectly explains the current confusion in the Lone Star...

New Study Finds Both Good News and Bad for Gorillas
There Are More Gorillas
Than We Thought
study says
Apr 26, 2018 4:59 PM CDT

There Are More Gorillas Than We Thought

But new study also finds bad news for western lowland gorillas

(Newser) - Although still highly vulnerable, there are more western lowland gorillas than previously thought, a new study finds. Over a 10-year period, scientists scoured 72,000 square miles of western equatorial Africa on foot patrols studying nests and other clues, reports the Guardian . Earlier estimates placed the gorilla population at 150,...

Alzheimer's May Afflict More Than Just Humans

Telltale signs have been observed in chimps

(Newser) - Humans are the only animal known to develop Alzheimer's disease, and an official diagnosis requires checking off this list of three things: dementia, which is observed through screenings, and two pathologic markers—amyloid plaques (sticky bunches of misfolded proteins) and neurofibrillary tangles (tau proteins clumped together and twisted around)....

Court Rules Chimps Still Not People

Group attempts to secure writ of habeas corpus for two captive chimpanzees

(Newser) - Chimpanzees are, legally speaking, still not people following a unanimous ruling by a New York state appeals court Thursday, the New York Daily News reports. The Nonhuman Rights Project is attempting to secure a writ of habeas corpus for Tommy, who lawyer Steven Wise says lives in a cement cage...

Bonobos Are Closest Humans Can Get to a 'Living Ancestor'

New study finds bonobos' anatomy has more in common with humans than chimps

(Newser) - A study published this month in Scientific Reports found bonobos have more in common—anatomically speaking—with human ancestors than they do with common chimpanzees. And that's pretty interesting for modern humans. "They are the closest we can get to having a 'living' ancestor," professor of...

Chimp With Down Syndrome Is Only 2nd Ever Documented

Kanako has stunted growth, heart disease, and blindness

(Newser) - Researchers in Japan have discovered only the second known chimpanzee born with what is, essentially, Down syndrome, according to a study published in Primates . Kanako, a 24-year-old female chimp, was born with trisomy 22. Her symptoms largely align with the symptoms seen in humans with Down syndrome, also known as...

Chimp Leader Killed, Eaten by His Former Subjects

It's a very rare occurrence of chimps killing in their own community

(Newser) - It was already a rare occurrence when a group of chimpanzees murdered one of their own—and then they started eating the body. In a study published last week in the International Journal of Primatology , researchers recount only the ninth recorded murder of a chimp by its own community. In...

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