Are we humans simply remodelled apes? Chimps with a tweak? Is the difference between our genomes so minuscule it justifies the argument that our cognition and behaviour must also differ from chimps by barely a whisker? If “chimps are us” should we grant them human rights? Or is this one of the biggest fallacies in the study of evolution? NOT A CHIMP argues that these similarities have been grossly over-exaggerated - we should keep chimps at arm’s length. Are humans cognitively unique after all?
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Chimps Use Cleavers And Anvils As Tools To Chop Food
Interesting piece about the observations of Kathelijne Koops, together with Bill McGrew and Tetsuro Matzuzawa, on novel tool use of the chimps in the Nimba Mountains of Guinea. Because the Treculia fruits they are so fond of are very large - the size of a volleyball and weighing up to 8.5 kilos - they cannot access the food by biting into it. They use a variety of stone and wooden cleavers to splinter the fruit into manageable pieces on stone anvils. The practice is very local to this group of chimps - a local culture - and is not shared, for example, by the neighbouring Seringbara chimps.
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