The Lurkdragon's Lair

rhamphotheca:

Strongest Evidence of Animal Culture Seen in Monkeys and Whales

by Michael Balter

Until fairly recently, many scientists thought that only humans had culture, but that idea is now being crushed by an avalanche of recent research with animals. Two new studies in monkeys and whales take the work further, showing how new cultural traditions can be formed and how conformity might help a species survive and prosper. The findings may also help researchers distinguish the differences between animal and human cultures.

Researchers differ on exactly how to define culture, but most agree that it involves a collective adoption and transmission of one or more behaviors among a group. Humans’ ability to create and transmit new cultural trends has helped our species dominate Earth, in large part because each new generation can benefit from the experiences of the previous one.

Researchers have found that similar, albeit much simpler, cultural transmission takes place in animals, including fish, insects, meerkats, birds, monkeys, and apes. Sometimes these cultural traits seem bizarre, such as the recently developed trend among some capuchin monkeys to poke each other’s eyeballs with their long, sharp fingernails—a behavior that originated among a small group of individuals and which has spread over time…

(read more: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/04/strongest-evidence-of-animal-cul.html?ref=hp)

(photo: (top, monkies) Erica van de Waal; (bottom, whales) Jennifer Allen/Whale Center of New England; Jennifer Allen/Ocean Alliance)

Punk Monkey by *Haufschild

Light Spirits from Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess

(via sulyyasprings)

rhamphotheca:

Golden Snub-nosed Monkeys (Rhinopithecus roxellana) keep warm in their snowy habitat on Shennongjia Mountain in the Hubei Province of China - by hugging. With their fur coated with icicles the monkeys huddle close together for shelter from the arctic-like weather. Snow can reach a depth of 30cm with temperatures plummeting to as low as -25C. Golden monkeys can withstand colder temperatures than any other non-human primate. There are estimated to be just 800 to 1,300 left in the wild.

(Photograph: Quirky China News/Rex)                 (via: Guardian UK)

rhamphotheca:

BBC Wildlife Camera-trap Photos of the Year 2011  

Southern pig-tailed macaque (Macaca nemestrina) by Joanna Ross and Andrew Hearn, Borneo

(via: DiscoverWildlife.com)

animals-animals-animals:

Hanuman Langur (by wildphotons)

theshadoweclipse841:

Majora’s Mask

[x]

(via simplyzelda)

foervraengd:

“The Pride of Baghdad” by Brian K Vaughan

I saw this comic book in my lecturer’s office one time, and I regret not asking to borrow it (it was our last meeting before I graduated) because even though I only took a few peeks of it, it really caught my attention. And now… FINALLY I have found the title of the comic, so now I can look it up again and actually read this awesome piece of art.

From what I’ve seen, the story is about a group of lions that lives in a zoo in Baghdad, and one day the city is under attack and the bombs that drops from the sky more or less set the animals free. So now the lions (+ a lot of other exotic animals from the zoo) has to survive in the middle of a war between the humans.

Oh gosh, even tho I haven’t read the whole comic yet, I would still recommend it. The artwork, the overall plot and the action really is something I haven’t seen before. (But that’s because I suck at finding comics in my taste)

(via zada2011)

(via wickedtouch8)

animals-animals-animals:

Rhesus Macaque (by tomosuke214)

animals-animals-animals:

Douc (by Ann J. Sagel)

funnywildlife:

phototoartguy:

Bath-time!

500px / Photo “liitle monkeys” by Marcosjra and Patypatyapaty @500px.com

(via numb-thysoul-deactivated2012081)

(via light-wolf)

theecolologist:

Deer Diary: The Benefits of ‘Monkeyin’ Around‘…

Researchers from Kyoto University, Japan, have discovered that Sika deer on Yakushima Island have learned to ‘eavesdrop’ on the calls of Macaque monkeys as part of their foraging strategy. 

Ella Davies of BBC Nature reports:

A team from Kyoto University, Japan, tested how macaque monkey calls affected the feeding behaviour of the deer that live on Yakushima Island.

Previous research has focussed on species “listening to” one another to avoid danger.

But when scientists played macaque calls from hidden speakers, the deer gathered nearby, indicating that they associate the sounds with benefits.

Dr Hiroki Koda who led the study said it was a good example of “possible interspecies communication” and that the deer seemed to be eavesdropping as a “foraging strategy”.The results were published in the journal Behavioural Processes.

Yakushima Island lies to the south of Kyushu, Japan, and is protected by its Unesco world heritage status.

The island, which includes the ancient and famous Yakusugi Forest, is home to 1,900 species and subspecies of fauna. The deer and macaques that live there feed on the fruit of camphor trees.

Researchers first reported the deer “gleaning” fruit from beneath trees where monkeys were feeding in 2004.

Dr Koda from the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University wanted to investigate how the deer were able to follow the monkeys to foraging sites.

After hiding speakers in the forest he played recordings of calls commonly made between the monkeys during feeding sessions.

Continue reading the main story

In his experiments, Dr Koda found that groups of deer often gathered near speakers during the playbacks, but they rarely gathered during “silent” periods when no calls were played.

Dr Koda now aims to investigate whether the deer can differentiate between the various food calls made by the monkeys.

He explained that there were “many common food items” that both deer and macaques ate.

“But of course,” he said, “some food items are used only by macaques, or only by sika deer.

“When macaques make food-associated calls [for] “macaque fruits”, sika deer might not [respond].”

(via rhamphotheca)

Source: headlikeanorange