Project Nim

Back in 2008 I wrote a book review of Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human There are a number of stories in the Guardian concerning a documentary, based on the book, on the subject. First, Peter Singer reviews the film. Second, Carole Jahme interviews special effects artist Pauline Fowler. Finally, there is a [...]

Do Chimpanzees Mourn For Their Dead?

Note: The next addition of the Four Stone hearth will at This is Serious Monkey Business on February 2nd. Pleas get your submissions in! That seems to be the way the press is portraying the video below. The video was released in conjunction with an article published in the American Journal of Primatology (the article [...]

Sex Differences in Chimpanzee Use of Play Objects

I will be hosting the Four Stone Hearth on 1/05/11. Please send my your submissions! In the meantime, I am looking for hosts for dates in February and March. If you are interested in hosting drop me a line (my email address is on the “About” tab). Current Biology has and interesting paper called Sex [...]

Contagious Yawning In Chimpanzees Caused By Animation

I first became interested in the subject of yawning based on this NPR story. The idea that yawning is contagious is not a new idea. Of course, dogs do yawn in response to humans, as do primates. But do they yawn in response to a video?

Chimpanzee Tool Use: Ants, Termites, and Bee’s Nests

Science Daily has an interesting item, Chimpanzees Develop ‘Specialized Tool Kits’ To Catch Army Ants, that discusses research into tool use in chimpanzee ant catching behavior.

Chimpanzee Tool Kits

The Discovery Channel website has an interesting story on chimpanzee tool kits : For this latest study, however, Boesch and colleagues Josephine Head and Martha Robbins observed chimpanzees at Loango National Park on the coast of Gabon, Africa. They identified at least five different types of chimp-made honey extraction tools used in sequence. The tools [...]

Chimps, Dogs, Or Ants: Which is a Better Model For Human Sociality

Over at UD Denyse O’Leary is all twitterpated over this news story. The news item concerns a paper accepted for publication in the journal Advances in the Study of Behavior. The paper hasn’t been published yet, so we are dependent on MSNBC for details: Lead author Jozsef Topal explained to Discovery News “that shared environment [...]

Pathology of Chimpanzee Skeletons At Kibale

Paleopathology, for all practical purposes, is the study of the diseases and traumas that affect humans in the past. Necessarily, it is restricted to the study of the skeleton which severely limits the scope of what diseases can be studied. Even with that restriction a wide variety of questions can be addressed. We can, for [...]

Interesting Chimpanzee Videos

The recent chimp hissy fit thrown by the residents at UD reminded me of some videos I wanted to post…

Chimpanzees Should Never Be Pets!

They occasionally signed a few words to each other, although Byrne had often said that sign language was irrelevant to their relationship. From time to time Byrne believed that their discussions, however they communicated, verged on the philosophical. It was as if Nim was questioning Byrne, asking him over and over, “Why am I here? [...]

Von Economo Neurons and Hominoids

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I would have more to say about primates, brain evolution, and life history. I still plan on exploring that in future posts, but wanted to mention this interesting item that deserves a post of its own.

Chimp and Human Genome Compared and Other Interesting Evolution Stories

The chimp and human genomes are being compared in two articles that came out today.

Book Review: Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human by Elizabeth Hess

Washoe was justifiably famous for her use of sign language and everyone is familiar with her story. What may not be as widely known is that Washoe was only the tip of the iceberg. Once upon a time, raising chimps among human families was quite common. Such endeavors served a wide variety of purposes. One, [...]

Chimps and Spearing

Brian has an interesting update on the spear use by Fongoli chimps. Definitely a must read!

The Chimps Continue to Construct a New Niche

Or maybe they are just being observed filling their old niche more frequently. At any rate, the chimps I have blogged about here and here are in the news again. There is not much to report, other than that the use of spears in hunting continues to grow: