Pure Pedantry : Mischevious monkey pulls fire alarm

Reality is always more complicated than you think.

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Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.

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Mischevious monkey pulls fire alarm

Category: Aminals
Posted on: November 17, 2006 3:17 PM, by Jake Young

Sounds like the kids I used to babysit:

Panbanisha the bonobo is up to her tricks again.
For the second time in as many months, the ape triggered a fire alarm at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa research center.

The trouble started Wednesday morning, when Panbanisha wanted to go outside but the staff was too busy to let her out, trust officials said. Panbanisha then apparently lost her temper and pulled the alarm, officials said.

It's a trick Panbanisha initially learned in October when she saw a welder start the alarm. It took her less than a day to learn how to duplicate the excitement.

When the alarm sounded the next morning, "I went to check on Pan, and she was sitting there next to it with a smile on her face," lead scientist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh said last month. (Emphasis mine.)

Awesome. Every time I hear behavioral scientists talk, they always tell me a new story of something the animal figured out that they had no idea they could. Tricky little buggers put everything together.

Comments

"Mischevious monkey"? You think you can get away with calling an ape a monkey on Scienceblogs?

Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | November 17, 2006 5:35 PM

I am sorry to say that I rank people who insist on correcting the distinction between apes and monkeys right around people who insist on correcting people's grammar.

Posted by: Jake Young | November 17, 2006 10:32 PM

This reminds me of the story of the octupus that snuck out of his tank every night, stole some fish living across the room, and then got back in his tank. I was always impressed by how the octopus seemed to know that if he got back in his tank, it would take longer for humans to figure out what was happening.

Posted by: Baratos | November 17, 2006 10:52 PM

I heard that story too. I was really impressed because you don't associate invertebrates with that level of cognitive complexity.

Posted by: Jake Young | November 17, 2006 11:00 PM

If Panbanisha had a date, she probably wouldn't be so ornery.

Posted by: lotsofish | November 17, 2006 11:08 PM