Chimp Chucks Rocks at Zoo

Minister of Truth

Minister of Truth

Practically Perfect
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090309/D96QN3P01.html

STOCKHOLM (AP) - A canny chimpanzee who calmly collected a stash of rocks and then hurled them at zoo visitors in fits of rage has confirmed that apes can plan ahead just like humans, a Swedish study said Monday. Santino the chimpanzee's anti-social behavior stunned both visitors and keepers at the Furuvik Zoo but fascinated researchers because it was so carefully prepared.

According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said.

"These observations convincingly show that our fellow apes do consider the future in a very complex way," said the author of the report, Lund University Ph.D. student Mathias Osvath. "It implies that they have a highly developed consciousness, including lifelike mental simulations of potential events."
 
Good on him, i say.

I think most people here, faced with decades of being gawped at by fat sticky children, would react in exactly the same way, although i would probably go the extra mile and dip the stones in my own excrement before launch. That is what marks us out as different from our chimpy cousins.
 
charver said:
Good on him, i say.

I think most people here, faced with decades of being gawped at by fat sticky children, would react in exactly the same way, although i would probably go the extra mile and dip the stones in my own excrement before launch. That is what marks us out as different from our chimpy cousins.
Click to expand...
WAD (Weapons of Ass Destruction ;) )
 
charver said:
Good on him, i say.

I think most people here, faced with decades of being gawped at by fat sticky children, would react in exactly the same way, although i would probably go the extra mile and dip the stones in my own excrement before launch. That is what marks us out as different from our chimpy cousins.
Click to expand...

As I understand it, typically chimps will just skip the rocks and go straight for hurling excrement. Perhaps the latter was in too short supply for his purposes. It's interesting that this study shows the planning involved (though really it isn't a new phenomenon; planning among primates and other animals has been observed for some time).
 
Thorn said:
As I understand it, typically chimps will just skip the rocks and go straight for hurling excrement. Perhaps the latter was in too short supply for his purposes. It's interesting that this study shows the planning involved (though really it isn't a new phenomenon; planning among primates and other animals has been observed for some time).
Click to expand...

In the past the great apes were just put in cages on display. The intellect and emotional nature of the animals deteriorated rapidly without stimulation.

Most zoos now try to provide a more natural habitat and something to stimulate the intellect.
 
charver said:
Good on him, i say.

I think most people here, faced with decades of being gawped at by fat sticky children, would react in exactly the same way, although i would probably go the extra mile and dip the stones in my own excrement before launch. That is what marks us out as different from our chimpy cousins.
Click to expand...

mega LOLs
 
Solitary said:
In the past the great apes were just put in cages on display. The intellect and emotional nature of the animals deteriorated rapidly without stimulation.

Most zoos now try to provide a more natural habitat and something to stimulate the intellect.
Click to expand...

No Chimp Left Behind.
 
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