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Author Topic: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'  (Read 4761 times)

MechAg94

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #25 on: February 24, 2007, 03:41:19 PM »
I am picturing human arms dealers figuring out how to trade fiberglass spears with steel points for bush baby furs.  Before you know it, chimps are using leverguns and mosin nagant bolt rifles.  Cheesy
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LAK

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #26 on: February 24, 2007, 09:42:30 PM »
Quote
Chimpanzees were observed jabbing the spears into hollow trunks or branches, over and over again. After the chimp removed the tool, it would frequently smell or lick it.

This sounds more like probe, and I would not swear to it - but i am sure I have seen primates of various types do this kind of thing with sticks, branches etc on film going back firty years ago. This really is not anything new.

Quote
In the vast majority of cases, the chimps used the tools in the manner of a spear, not as probes. The researchers say they were using enough force to injure an animal that may have been hiding inside.

See above. And tools is a rather sophisticated term for a stick or branch. But chimpanzees, again, IIRC have been often recorded using objects to hurt their kindred kind as well as people, and being animals they do often tend to use "excessive force" when playing around aggressively or otherwise.

Some people ought to see footage of them tear apart other species of monkeys - literally.

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Matthew Carberry

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #27 on: February 24, 2007, 09:50:54 PM »
LAK,

I've seen the ant probes and such also.  Apparently this is different enough that the folks who study them all the time were caught off guard.

They are stripping the branches and sharpening them pretty deliberately according to the report.  The more you dress a stick (or rock) the more "tool" and less "found object" they become.  Probing into a crevice for unseen nocturnal prey and they spearing it for deliberate extraction is different than just poking in to disturb insects.
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MechAg94

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #28 on: February 25, 2007, 10:27:43 AM »
Well, once you learn to use a tool for one purpose, other uses are only natural.
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AJ Dual

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #29 on: February 25, 2007, 10:38:18 AM »
What I find more intersting is how little notice the reports of the mysterious black monolith standing in the forest near the tribe of spear-using chimps is getting...  undecided
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Matthew Carberry

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #30 on: February 25, 2007, 10:45:29 AM »
Quote from: AJ Dual on February 25, 2007, 09:38:18 AM
What I find more intersting is how little notice the reports of the mysterious black monolith standing in the forest near the tribe of spear-using chimps is getting...  undecided

heh  laugh
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Cosmoline

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #31 on: February 25, 2007, 04:04:17 PM »
Quote from: MechAg94 on February 24, 2007, 02:41:19 PM
I am picturing human arms dealers figuring out how to trade fiberglass spears with steel points for bush baby furs.  Before you know it, chimps are using leverguns and mosin nagant bolt rifles.  Cheesy

I have some 54R surplus that was actually made by apes.  Angry apes with ball peen hammers.
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LAK

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #32 on: February 28, 2007, 12:15:37 AM »
carebear,

I might agree, except; what exactly are they supposed to have been spearing?
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Matthew Carberry

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #33 on: February 28, 2007, 07:53:56 AM »
Those cute little bush babies and other mammals pictured above. 

Little monkey-like, nocturnal critters that live in crevices beyond where the chimps can reach during the day.  So they probe with the carefully sharpened and trimmed stick to see if anything is in there and, if so, spear it and drag it out.
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K Frame

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #34 on: February 28, 2007, 10:01:44 AM »
"Some people ought to see footage of them tear apart other species of monkeys - literally."

I saw that in college.

Fraternity hazing rituals....
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Iapetus

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #35 on: February 28, 2007, 11:47:22 AM »
Quote from: Cromlech on February 24, 2007, 05:55:54 AM
Most animal rights types are fine with animals killing other animals, they usually only hate that humans do it. Their argument is that we are not slaves to our own instincts to the degree that other predators are.

Slightly OT, but:


A little while ago (three or four years) in England, a bunch of "animal rights" people "liberated" a load of mink from a mink farm, into the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_forest, which is an important conservation area, where they immediately set about eating their way through various endangered species.

All the real conservationist went absolutely ballistic over this, but the nuts that responded to the criticism by claiming that the mink were becoming vegetarians!
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Matthew Carberry

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #36 on: February 28, 2007, 05:37:14 PM »
Quote from: Iapetus on February 28, 2007, 10:47:22 AM
All the real conservationist went absolutely ballistic over this, but the nuts that responded to the criticism by claiming that the mink were becoming vegetarians!

Yeah, that special kind of "vegetarianism" that occurs in the brief span of time between when an obligate carnivore eats the last possible prey animal and when it starves to death.  rolleyes
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LAK

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #37 on: February 28, 2007, 10:49:38 PM »
Carebear,

Well, I know what bush babies are, but I still have a hard time believing this si some kind of "first".
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LadySmith

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #38 on: March 01, 2007, 04:01:55 AM »
I'm going to sponsor a non-binding resolution that chimpanzees only spear and eat ugly animals instead of those adorable little bush-babies.
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Matthew Carberry

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Re: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'
« Reply #39 on: March 01, 2007, 08:51:46 AM »
Quote from: LAK on February 28, 2007, 09:49:38 PM
Carebear,

Well, I know what bush babies are, but I still have a hard time believing this si some kind of "first".

Well, it's all relative.  They may have been doing this for a long time, the researchers may just now have been in a position to notice.  That doesn't make it not unique to this group of chimps nor unique in terms of observed behavior up to this point for chimps in general, which I think is more the point.
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