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.
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"Mischevious monkey"? You think you can get away with calling an ape a monkey on Scienceblogs?
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.
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.
I heard that story too. I was really impressed because you don't associate invertebrates with that level of cognitive complexity.
If Panbanisha had a date, she probably wouldn't be so ornery.