October 10, 2004

Scientists discover a new group of giant apes in central Africa, which could be a new species of primate.
posted by homunculus 20 years ago
  • *makes fists and pounds chest* Tar-zan! Amazing find, homunculus, you've made my day with this. I'm truly and profoundly dumb-founded now. The description in the article certainly corresponds in some particulars to Edgar Rice Burroughs descriptions of the huge great apes that raised Tarzan. the written stuff, not the Disney pablum. But then, maybe fifteen years ago, there was a wonderfully enigmatic piece in some or other newspaper about a white passenger named John Greystoke who startled the pilot of a small plane when he jumped without notice or preamble into the jungles of the Congo. Heh.
  • This is a great story and ceratinly captures the imagination. There is some controversy, of course, but if it is true I hope it is covered as the huge story that it deserved to be: that we could miss an entire sub-species on the African continent should make us think, hard, about preservation of habitat and also about the nature of our wonder and curiosity. We look to the skies for intelligence akin to our own and it turns out we almost missed finding - and hopefully will save at the last moment - some of our closest cousins here at home. And given the descriptions of the size, violence (they are described as "lion killers" by the local humans), intelligence and behaviour it seems to me these maybe-great-apes would be closer to us than either chimps or gorillas. And for those who might be wondering, yes it was reports of these apes from years ago that inspired Michael Crichton's book/film Congo.
  • If this had been a bluff charge, they would have been screaming to intimidate us. These guys were quiet. And they were huge. They were coming in for the kill. I was directly in front of them, and as soon as they saw my face, they stopped and disappeared. Cool story. Strange how it took them this long to find out about them. Maybe the villagers the researchers came in contact with just learned about them recently themselves as a result of the major deforestation and the inhabitance of the cleared land.
  • Jerry, i just read about scientists determining that "the" African elephant is actually two separate species, and not one as had been formerly thought. Marvelous discoveries; think if I had to live my life over, I might opt for genetics, instead of the arts -- it seems a most exciting field. Though in ten years it will all be different -- the man's a fool, don't listen to him!
  • Right on, beeswacky. I can relate to that feeling. And elphants are incredibly intelligent beings. Have you read The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy? It's a beautiful novel written from the perspective of a herd of African elephants. A visionary book and incredibly moving. And of course we all know about the genetic tinkering that resulted in some very wacky bees. :-) Sorry about the 'registration-required' link for the The Age article in my above post. The story is here and you can log in using fugbuzzly/fugbuzzly.
  • No, but I will try to order it tomorrow, it certainly sounds like my kind of book, Jerry. Those are bastardly bees, trust me.
  • Here's a National Geographic story from April 2003 with a picture of one of the apes in question.
  • ...and Karl Amman's pictures. Not an entirely new discovery, but an extra large banana (possibly crossed with a plantain?) to homunculus.
  • Great story and thread. Thanks homunculus. mmmmm...plananabantainbaplanatain...
  • Ooooooh, lovely follow-up posts, guys!
  • According to local villagers, the apes are ferocious, and even capable of killing lions. Hmmm, my kind of apes. I for one... whatever.
  • Ferocious apes...stand up to two meters tall...nest on the ground...diet similar to chimpanzees. Gee, could it be possible that they just discovered Homo sapiens?
  • Yeah, the New Scientist article on them this week is excellent. Pissily, though, they don't put their feature articles online. Tossers. I can at least report that, amusingly, their cover story about the American elections was sub-headed with the phrase "Questions a president cannot ignore" - just below which was the headline "Is it a chimp, a gorilla, or something entirely new?"... Anyway, it's a wonderful enigma. To me, sounds like another chimp subspecies, but one which has moved into a gorilla-type ecological niche (which is fascinating enough). But it's be sooooo cool if it turned out to be a whole new species, or even a hybrid. Also, some lucky bastard is going to get to officially name it. I reckon Pan paradoxus has a nice ring to it, or maybe P. troglodytes anomalus. Or perhaps "Colin". Ah, I love me new ape species. Bring on Orang Pendak! it was reports of these apes from years ago that inspired Michael Crichton's book/film Congo. Thank God. I worried that my first reaction on reading the NS article - waving my hands around and saying "Bad, ugly gorillas" in a computerised voice - was in some way foolish. Now I know it was entirely justified.
  • MonkeyFilter: Questions a president cannot ignore. MonkeyFilter: Now Entirely Justified and the one to annoy persnickety primatologists out there... MonkeyFilter: A himp, a gorilla, or something entirely new?
  • Great, miss one thing on preview and everyone will wonder what the hell a 'himp' is.
  • Bring on Orang Pendak! Evidence of 'jungle yeti' found Heh. I saw this, found that homunculus had (of course) already posted it in the Sasquatch thread, but dammit, I've beaten him to this one! Ahahahahahahaaa!
  • Another discovery, this time in India: Macaca munzala, the Arunachal Macaque.
  • Macaques, both male and female, lack a prehensile tail.