Attacked by rabbits?
Must've been the Devil Bunnies.
Posted on 10/07/2004 1:15:07 AM PDT by aculeus
An elusive new species of great ape, known to locals as the "lion killer", may have been discovered in remote forests of the Congo.
The creatures are far larger and more aggressive than normal chimpanzees and have provoked much debate among experts. Some believe that the lion killers are a previously unknown species and should join the other great apes: the chimp, bonobo, gorilla and orang utan.
But others say they are unusually aggressive chimps with odd gorilla-like characteristics.
Legends of lost apes of the Congo basin go back more than a century and inspired the 1980 novel Congo by Michael Crichton. In the 1990s, Karl Ammann, a Swiss photographer, travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo to track them.
Locals told him about giant apes with a reputation for killing lions, New Scientist magazine reports today. Their ridged skulls were typical of gorillas but they behaved like chimps, and unlike either they made permanent nests.
Last year Shelly Williams, an independent primatologist affiliated to the Jane Goodall Institute in Maryland, in the United States, became the first scientist to see the creatures close up and is sure that they are a new species.
"We could hear them in the trees, about 20 feet away," she said. "My tracker made a sound of an injured duiker [antelope] and four came rushing through the brush towards me.
"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."
However, Dr Colin Groves, of the Australian National University, Canberra, who has studied their skulls, said: "There is no doubt from the measurements that this is the skull of a chimp, although the crest is strange."
Dr Andrew Whitten, of St Andrews University, questioned whether behavioural differences were enough to suggest a new ape. "There are huge cultural differences among chimpanzees," he said.
"I do not think that behaviour makes a good marker for sub-species in great apes as flexible as chimps."
Well, yes – males have traditionally been the dominant warriors. Only rarely have women participate in direct combat.
Uh oh – sexist?
A warrior is quite different from hunter though, wouldn't you agree?
Oook, oook! (partial ping)
Big Footprints bump!!
Has anyone checked Skull Island?
Well, somebody had to post it
I read the book and saw the movie, I think it was called, "Congo" by Michael Crichton.
Permanent and invisible.
Re: Yes, but she's in no danger of being raped.
ROTFLMAO!
Neither do lions.....
Ha! Very good!
That is, not until Tarzan taught them how to do it.
Was Diane Fosse in that area at all.
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