Posted on 06/10/2008 7:14:30 AM PDT by null and void
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Long-tailed macaque monkeys have a reputation for knowing how to find food - whether it be grabbing fruit from jungle trees or snatching a banana from a startled tourist.
Now, researchers say they have discovered groups of the silver-haired monkeys in Indonesia that fish.
Groups of long-tailed macaques were observed four times over the past eight years scooping up small fish with their hands and eating them along rivers in East Kalimantan and North Sumatra provinces, according to researchers from The Nature Conservancy and the Great Ape Trust.
A long-tailed macaque monkey looks for fish in a river in Lesan, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, in...
The species had been known to eat fruit and forage for crabs and insects, but never before fish from rivers.
"It's exciting that after such a long time you see new behavior," said Erik Meijaard, one of the authors of a study on fishing macaques that appeared in last month's International Journal of Primatology. "It's an indication of how little we know about the species."
Meijaard, a senior science adviser at The Nature Conservancy, said it was unclear what prompted the long-tailed macaques to go fishing. But he said it showed a side of the monkeys that is well-known to researchers - an ability to adapt to the changing environment and shifting food sources.
"They are a survivor species, which has the knowledge to cope with difficult conditions," Meijaard said Tuesday. "This behavior potentially symbolizes that ecological flexibility."
The other authors of the paper, which describes the fishing as "rare and isolated" behavior, are The Nature Conservancy volunteers Anne-Marie E. Stewart, Chris H. Gordon and Philippa Schroor, and Serge Wich of the Great Ape Trust.
Some other primates have exhibited fishing behavior, Meijaard wrote, including Japanese macaques, chacma baboons, olive baboons, chimpanzees and orangutans.
Agustin Fuentes, a University of Notre Dame anthropology professor who studies long-tailed macaques, or macaca fascicularis, on the Indonesian island of Bali and in Singapore, said he was "heartened" to see the finding published because such details can offer insight into the "complexity of these animals."
"It was not surprising to me because they are very adaptive," he said. "If you provide them with an opportunity to get something tasty, they will do their best to get it."
Fuentes, who is not connected with the published study, said he has seen similar behavior in Bali, where he has observed long-tailed macaques in flooded paddy fields foraging for frogs and crabs. He said it affirms his belief that their ability to thrive in urban and rural environments from Indonesia to northern Thailand could offer lessons for endangered species.
"We look at so many primate species not doing well. But at the same time, these macaques are doing very well," he said. "We should learn what they do successfully in relation to other species."
Still, Fuentes and Meijaard said further research was needed to understand the full significance of the behavior. Among the lingering questions are what prompted the monkeys to go fishing and how common it is among the species.
Long-tailed macaques were twice observed catching fish by The Nature Conservancy researchers in 2007, and Wich spotted them doing it two times in 1998 while studying orangutans.
We can do it, so it makes sense that monkeys can do it to some extent. I think some species of primates (besides ourselves) also use some rudimentary tools for other things.
This is another in a long line of articles where it appears that a journalist:
(1) woke up
(2) smoked a joint
(3) logged onto the PC in his mom’s basement (i.e. his ‘pad’)
(4) wrote an article on evolution.
The proof was demonstrated when researchers discovered little monkey boats littered with little monkey beer cans.
Are you saying monkeys have flies?
GGG?
Several years ago I took my little nephew fishing. As he caught a fair sized crappie I exclaimed “Look at that little monkey fish”
I subsequently got fired from my announcing job for Monday night football pewee league
I don’t think monkeys need fishing licenses unless they are over 16.
“I saw a nature program several years ago about a heron in England that did learn how to use bait to fish.”
It just goes to show that any bird-brain can fish. Actually, birds are alot smarter than people think.
Are you saying monkeys have flies?
What?....they can fly fish also?....this is crazy!
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Gathering...not fishing. (IMO)
That is flat out amazing.
Lets see em cast with an open face reel.
The really amazing part is that crows do this in the wild by fashioning similar ‘hooks’ from twigs. Twigs that they select, break off, strip off the foliage, and then finally trim up any long pieces that may get in the way. The fact that there’s adaptability to the concept shows some degree of intelligence.
Makes sense. They have to bend twigs all of the time to make a nest. Apparently, some of them figured out that they could use those bent twigs for other uses.
:’)
A man pulls into town with a truckload of fish. Game warden sees him and ask how he caught them? Come on I’ll show you. The warden gets in the truck and drives thirty minutes to a lake. They clamber into a boat and proceed to the middle of the lake. The man opens box pulls out a stick of dynamite and lights it. The warden says “Hey that’s illegal I’m going to have to arrest you.” The man hands the warden the sizzling dynamite and says, “did you come to fish or to talk?”
Sometimes I question whether you’re in Michigan...that joke sounds pretty ‘Redneck’ to me.
If you give a monkey a fish, you feed him for a day........If you teach a monkey to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.
The way Bears catch Salmon in the river has more in common with “fishing” then the actions of these Monkeys.
Give me a yell when the Monkeys are sitting in a boat drinking beer.
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