Forget the zombies. Worry about the gorillas.
According to field staff from the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, gorillas in Rwanda are outwitting potential captors and saving their peers from deadly traps.
John Ndayambaje, the Fossey Fund field data coordinator, said he saw a group of gorillas nearing a snare, when a silverback called Vuba made a sound of warning. Two juveniles and a blackback responded by running toward the snare and destroying it with their bare hand. They did the same to another snare nearby.
This is only the latest demonstration of ape intelligence documented by researchers.
Last year, scientists in Senegal observed chimpanzees using sharpened spears to kill smaller mammals before eating them. In the 1990s, Stanford researchers saw chimps hunting colobus monkeys with their bare hands. And decades of research shows that apes have better memories than college students, learn language through exposure (as human young do), and can be both socially violent and deeply empathic.
Even poop-throwing — that age-old indicator of ape idiocy — is actually a sign of high intelligence; scientists have found that chimps who throw their feces often and accurately tend to be the smartest and best communicators in their group. (We should set a few loose in Congress and see who they target.)
Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/27/...#ixzz21qrQe1YM |
