Primates
laelaps | January 20, 2009A little more than halfway through the horror novel The Relic, a blood-spattered tale of a monster lurking in the bowels of the American Museum of Natural History, the scientist Greg Kawakita shows off his evolutionary extrapolation program to his colleague, Margo. It is a complex analysis system designed to take two DNA samples and spit out a hypothetical intermediate creature, essentially extrapolating what their common ancestor must have been like. In a test run, Greg has the computer scrutinize the DNA of a chimpanzee and a human;
Intermediate form morphological characteristics:
Gracile…
laelaps | January 19, 2009A male Hamadryas baboon (Papio hamadryas), photographed at the North Carolina Zoo. Apparently I was a little too close for comfort and he made sure I saw how impressive his canines were.
laelaps | January 9, 2009John Daniel the gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), photographed at the American Museum of Natural History.
laelaps | January 4, 2009A cast of the skull of Australopithecus africanus, photographed at the American Museum of Natural History.
laelaps | January 4, 2009The reconstructed skull of Australopithecus afarensis, photographed at the American Museum of Natural History.
laelaps | December 28, 2008The skeleton of a young chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), photographed at the American Museum of Natural History. If you look at the right first incisor carefully, you can see evidence of hypoplasia.
laelaps | December 25, 2008A Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
laelaps | December 23, 2008An orangutan skull (Pongo pygmaeus), photographed at the American Museum of Natural History.
laelaps | December 20, 2008Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
laelaps | December 17, 2008A Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
laelaps | December 11, 2008
One of the most frustrating factors in studying early descriptions of apes is the multiple meanings of words like "baboon," "Jocko," "Pongo," "mandrill," and "Orang-Outang." Even though we now know apes are our closest living relatives, it has only been recently (within the last 250 years or so) that we have come to know very much about them. Even after they receiving scientific names and the distinct varieties were figured out, there was more myth, legend, and hearsay about them than fact until the latter half of the 20th century!
The confusion over apes in descriptions from the 18th and…
laelaps | December 9, 2008A young Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
laelaps | December 3, 2008Last week I wrote about the brief life and death of John Daniel, the "civilized gorilla." I wanted to know more about him, chiefly whether I could still see him at the AMNH or not, so I sent a query to the museum. Here's the information I got back;
Gorilla gorilla gorilla
From: Barnum and Bailey
Gender: Male
Museum #: 54084
Mounted on exhibit, 3rd floor Primates Hall
He's still there (or, rather, his skin is), behind glass in the gorilla-poop-colored display in the Hall of Primates. In about two weeks I'll be heading into the city, to see the Japanese macaques at the Central Park Zoo in…
laelaps | November 29, 2008
It wasn't so long ago that, if the price was right, you could buy an ape. Plucked from Africa and sent to Europe and America, apes often changed hands several times for large sums of money before expiring after only a few weeks, months, or years. Writing of the attempts of the Bronx Zoo to keep gorillas at the dawn of the 20th century, for instance, William Hornaday doubted whether it would ever be possible to successfully house gorillas for more than a few weeks. When you got news of a gorilla arriving at the zoo, you made haste to see it.
Only some of the apes were housed in zoos, however…
laelaps | November 28, 2008
When the topic of "animal rights" comes up here on Sb, it is often in the unfortunate context of a recent terrorist attack on a lab or researcher's home. These events are deplorable, but we should take care to remember that it was not that long ago that cruelty to animals, in the colleges and in public, was a regular thing.
In an interview held on WHYY's Radio Times held earlier this year, host Marty Moss-Coane discussed the treatment of animals during the "long 18th century" with author Kathryn Shevelow, whose book For the Love of Animals covered just that topic. You can listen to the…
laelaps | November 26, 2008A pair of black-crested gibbons (Nomascus concolor), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
laelaps | November 25, 2008
When I last visited Sea World in Orlando, Florida, I saw the Shamu show. It didn't matter that the original Shamu died in 1971; she was so iconic that the biggest of orcas at each theme park is still presented under her name. (The individual I saw was actually called Tilikum.)
This kind of symbolic naming is nothing new. It has been going on with performing animals for over 100 years. One example was Consul, a performing chimpanzee (or, rather, a series of performing chimpanzees). As I have written about previously, the public was very interested in gorillas, cavemen, and "missing links"…