Hippy apes caught cannibalising their young

newscientist.com ^ | Feb. 1, 2010 | Ewen Callaway

[Free ThinkerNY]

So much for the "hippy chimp". Bonobos, known for their peaceable ways and casual sex, have been caught in the act of cannibalism.

An account of a group of wild bonobos consuming a dead infant, published last month, is the first report of cannibalism in these animals – making the species the last of the great apes to reveal a taste for the flesh of their own kind.

The account comes from a group of primatologists led by Gottfried Hohmann of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The team has studied bonobos in the wild at a site in Salonga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on hundreds of days since 2002. Few were more eventful than 9 and 10 July, 2008.

Early on the morning of 9 July, Andrew Fowler spotted an ape known as Olga with her two daughters: 5 or 6-year-old Ophelia, and Olivia, who was three years her junior. "By 8 o'clock Olivia was dead," says Fowler. She showed no obvious traces of blood or bruises, so it seems unlikely she had been killed by other members of her group. Decomposing corpse

Fowler's team lost sight of the apes not long afterwards, but early the following day he saw Olga join them carrying Olivia's body, which had already begun to decompose. "It was smelling, limp and wet," he recalls. Olga and seven others spent the rest of the day devouring the corpse.

"We've never seen anything like this," says Vanessa Woods at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who studies semi-captive bonobos at a reserve. "The last time I saw an infant die, the mother held onto it for days and the keepers had trouble taking the body away."

[GeronL]

That is exactly what comes from free sex hippies.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Yeah, ain’t that a surprise.

[Alistair Stratford IV]

Bush’s fault?

[Cacique]

Democrats do the same thing.

[Alistair Stratford IV]

[MAexile]

So the Hippy lifestyle eventually devolves into cannibalism.

I can buy that.

[mamelukesabre]

You don’t have to go very far back in history to find the “at one with nature” crowd practicing cannibalism. So maybe this is something we should aspire to? Eh greenpiece?

[MaxMax]

That's not all.

Rogue monkey accused of attempted rapes
An elderly woman is reported to have died of shock after the monkey jumped on her.

Monkeys need to be regulated and laws need to be passed to protect the public.

[netmilsmom]

Animals are animals no matter how much we humanize them.

[imskylark]

Sound like what the hippies are doing to us.

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Free ThinkerNY. Bonobos, known for their peaceable ways and casual sex, have been caught in the act of cannibalism. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[Nooseman]

Global warming caused this,dontcha know.

[autumnraine]

Free “love” sex/sadistic treatment of infants.

Seems there is a liberal connection there doesn’t there. We should study their brains.

[Nooseman]

Maybe mom was just waitin on the nosy people to clear out first?

[wendy1946]

You wan to hear the world's ultimate story about monkeys?

[GSP.FAN]

Party on dude..

[JmyBryan]

Obviously, the fault can be placed squarely upon the Bush administration.

[colorado tanker]

C'mere ya big ape.