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Post by King Kodiak on Nov 5, 2019 23:34:30 GMT -5
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Nov 16, 2019 17:05:17 GMT -5
Chimpanzees are sadly underestimated too.
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Post by King Kodiak on Nov 16, 2019 17:33:24 GMT -5
Chimpanzees are sadly underestimated too. Very true. Primates are badly underrated in general.
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jan 12, 2020 23:01:32 GMT -5
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Post by King Kodiak on Jan 13, 2020 5:34:30 GMT -5
Good info Americanus. 2 dogs were made lame by the chimps, looks like they got hurt.
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Post by brobear on Jan 23, 2021 9:03:44 GMT -5
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Post by brobear on Jan 23, 2021 15:43:30 GMT -5
Chimpanzee - Pan troglodytes. Subspecies: Pan troglodytes verus Pan troglodytes ellioti Pan troglodytes troglodytes Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii
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Post by brobear on Jan 24, 2021 13:29:38 GMT -5
www.nbcnews.com/dateline/search-mystery-apes-bili-forest-n568751 He found traces of the so called “mystery apes,” but the apes themselves remained elusive. It’s virtually impossible for a human to keep up with an ape as it moves through the vines, thorns and underbrush. It didn’t help that the forest is also home to armies of aggressive ants and swarms of bees that are attracted, in the dry season, to the moisture from humans’ sweat and eyes. “It was fascinating,” Hicks says of the mystery. “There was even speculation that maybe these apes were a hybrid between chimpanzees and gorillas, a new species of great ape, or something else.” “They have a different diet, different culture,” Hicks says. “They often nest on the ground, like gorillas do and they use the longest tools we have seen in Africa to dip for ants or honey." "They seem like the boss when you get there. They are like ‘who are you to come into my kingdom?’”
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Post by brobear on Jan 24, 2021 13:34:07 GMT -5
The mysterious Bili Ape - Bondo Ape - Mangani - Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii.
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Post by brobear on Jan 24, 2021 13:39:18 GMT -5
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bili_ape In some ways, the apes behave more like gorillas than chimpanzees. For example, they build ground nests as gorillas do, using interwoven branches and/or saplings, bent down into a central bowl. However, they frequently nest in the trees as well. Often ground nests will be found beneath or in proximity to tree nests. Their diet is decidedly chimpanzee-like, consisting mainly of fruits (fruiting trees such as strangler figs are visited often). The Bili apes pant-hoot and tree-drum like other chimpanzees, and do not howl at the moon, contrary to initial reports. The Bili ape has been reported to be bipedal (meaning they walk upright) and stand 5 to 5.5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, with the looks of a giant chimpanzee; making them look more like the extinct australopithecine, Sahelanthropus or Toumaï. Their footprints, which range from 28 to 34 centimeters long, are longer than the largest common chimp and gorilla footprints, which average 26 cm and 29 cm, respectively. According to Williams, "They have a very flat face, a wide muzzle and their brow-ridge runs straight across and overhangs. They seem to turn grey very early in life, but instead of turning grey-black like a gorilla, they turn grey all over." They develop uniform grey fur independently of age and sex, which suggests that greying takes place early in life (whereas in all known gorilla species, only males gray as they age and graying is restricted to their backs). Bili ape skulls have the prominent brow ridge and may sometimes have a sagittal crest similar to that of a gorilla, but other morphological measurements are more like those of chimpanzees. Only one of the many skulls found at Bili had a sagittal crest, thus it cannot yet be considered typical for the population. Chimpanzee skulls are 190 to 210 millimeters long, but four out of five Bili ape skulls measured more than 220 millimeters, well beyond the end of the normal chimpanzee range. Female Bili apes have genital swellings similar to other chimpanzees.
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Post by brobear on Jan 25, 2021 2:27:25 GMT -5
www.erbzine.com/mag29/2998.html *Being an avid E.R.B. reader myself, and having read each of the Tarzan novels more than once, I am very familiar with the Mangani, the fictional species of ape which raised Tarzan in the jungle from infancy. When I first read about the discovery of the Bili ape, I immediately recognized these apes as the Mangani ( coincidence? ). ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Since 1912, when Edgar Rice Burroughs created the character of Tarzan, the Mangani have always been cause for concern for readers because scientifically species such as these, which according to the fiction have a great ability to learn better than their ancestors primitive but inferior to men, are seen as one of the possible closer relatives to the latter. It is sometimes said that the Mangani could be classified in traditional taxonomy as in the genus: Australopithecus, class: mammalian, order: primates or apes, family Pongidae or anthropomorphic and bipedal omnivores. Although it is said to be an intermediate species between the chimpanzee and gorilla, it has characteristics of both other than their own. It also suggests that the average life of the Mangani is equal to that of man and shares 98% DNA similarity with them, according to tests made with the DNA hybridization technique, which many scientists consider a wrongdoing or error. Some people say that the Mangani should be compared more with the Bili Ape or chimp giant, having many features in common, which highlights the findings of Edgar Rice Burroughs in his book Tarzan of the Apes. Blending fiction with science and based on drawings provided by various comic artists, we have described below, from the standpoint of physical and behavioral, the Mangani's characteristics. We can then say, and by current scientific illustration that they are from genus: manganni (great-ape), family hominidae (great apes), phylum: chordata (spinal cord), class: mammalian, order: primates, superfamily: hominoidea (primate monkeys without tails).
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Post by brobear on Jan 25, 2021 3:25:43 GMT -5
tarzan.fandom.com/wiki/Mangani It has also been suggested that the Mangani be retroactively identified with the recently discovered Bili ape, a type of giant chimpanzee sharing some of the traits of the fictional species, including size and habitat. integr8dfix.blogspot.com/2012/01/lost-world-of-apes-bili-and-mangani.html In June 2006, British Science Weekly reported that Cleve Hicks and colleagues from the University of Amsterdam had completed a year-long hunt for these apes during which they were able to observe the creatures a total of 20 full hours. Hicks reported that he saw "nothing gorilla about them", stating that "they pant-hoot and tree-drum, and so on," and adding that "the females definitely have a chimp's sex swellings." DNA samples recovered from feces also reaffirmed the classification of these apes in the chimp subspecies Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii. scienceheathen.com/2015/01/11/bili-apes-giant-lion-eating-chimp-chimpanzee-subspecies/ “What we have found is this completely new chimpanzee culture,” Hicks noted, when discussing the event in an interview back around the time that the work was done. “How can they get away with sleeping on the ground when there are lions, leopards, (and) golden cats around, as well as other dangerous animals like elephants and buffalo?” Hicks commented. www.pearldrummersforum.com/showthread.php?171516-Gorilla-Size-Chimps-The-Bondo-Bili-Ape They are the 'lion killers', who seldom climb trees and are bigger and darker, who hoot when the moon rises and sets, something chimps don't do for fear of attracting lions and hyenas. Bili Apes make a distinct vocalization like a howl which seems to be louder when the full moon rises and sets something similar to the Mangani during the Dum Dum in Tarzan of the Apes.
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Post by brobear on Jan 25, 2021 3:45:06 GMT -5
karlshuker.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-bili-bondo-apes-unmasking-congos.html THE BILI (BONDO) APES – UNMASKING THE CONGO'S GIANT CHIMPANZEES Here's the latest in my occasional series of ShukerNature cryptozoology articles re anomalous and controversial chimpanzee forms (click here for my account of the pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo, here for the koolookamba, here for Ufiti, and here for 'apeman' Oliver). Until quite recently, even amid the many remote regions of darkest Africa, the possibility of an unknown form of anthropoid existing there yet still eluding scientific recognition seemed ludicrous - but then came the Bili (aka Bondo) ape. The saga of this remarkable, highly controversial primate began more than a century ago, when in 1898 a Belgian army officer returned home from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo with some gorilla skulls obtained by him in a forested region near the village of Bili, on the Uele River in northern Congo's Bondo area - even though no other gorillas had been found within hundreds of miles of Bili before (or since). He donated them to Belgium's Congo Museum in Tervueren, where in due course they were examined by its curator, Henri Schouteden. He was sufficiently struck by their anatomical differences from other gorilla skulls as well as by their unique provenance (roughly halfway between the extreme edges of the western and eastern distribution of any gorilla populations) to classify them as a new subspecies of gorilla, which he dubbed Gorilla gorilla uellensis. Less convinced of their separate taxonomic status, conversely, was mammalogist Prof. Colin Groves, whose examination of these skulls in 1970 led him to announce that they were indistinguishable from western lowland gorillas. Thereafter, the Bili ape sank back into obscurity - until 1996, when Kenyan-based conservationist and wildlife photographer Karl Ammann, intrigued by its strange history and apparent disappearance, set out on the first of several Congolese quests to rediscover this mysterious primate. And rediscover it he did, bringing back such compelling evidence for its presence that several other notable investigators launched their own searches, and returned with equally fascinating clues concerning the Bili ape's nature. Such researchers included primatologist Dr Shelly Williams from Maryland's Jane Goodall Institute, Dr Richard Wrangham from the Leakey Foundation, Dr Christophe Boesch from Leipzig's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Dr Esteban Sarmiento from New York's American Museum of Natural History, and Dr George Schaller from New York's Wildlife Conservation Society. What made their various finds so especially interesting was the ambivalent identity that they collectively yielded for the Bili ape - because, uniquely, it deftly yet bemusingly combines characteristics of gorillas with those of chimpanzees, creating a shadowy anthropoid that is at once both yet neither. For instance: if the Bili ape is a chimpanzee, it is a veritable giant, because videos of living specimens and photographs of dead ones suggest a height of 5-6 ft - a mighty stature supported by the discovery of enormous footprints, some measuring almost 14 in long, and therefore nearly 2 in longer even than those of the mountain gorilla! Also, very large ground nests constructed by Bili apes have been found that compare with those created by gorillas; normal chimps build smaller, tree-borne nests. Further evidence of the Bili ape's great size comes from local Bondo hunters, who distinguish two distinct apes - 'tree-beaters' (normal chimps) and 'lion-killers' (the Bili apes). The latter earn their name from their combined size and ferocity, a mix potent enough to ensure their terrestrial safety even in a jungle profusely populated by lions and leopards. Indeed, so unafraid of these great cats are the Bili apes that according to media claims they hoot loudly when the moon rises and sets - an activity unknown among normal, smaller chimps, who avoid doing so in case they attract predators. However, these latter claims have been denied by Amsterdam University field researcher Cleve Hicks, who spent a year with colleagues tracking Bili apes during from mid-2005 to June 2006, followed by a second study spanning July 2006-February 2007. Particularly noticeable is the presence of a pronounced sagittal crest running along the top of one of the original skulls collected by the Belgian army officer, and also on a Bili ape skull found by Ammann in 1996 - because this crest, normally an indication of powerful jaws as the jaw muscles are attached to it, is characteristic of gorillas, not of chimps. Conversely, the facial anatomy of the Bili skulls is decidedly chimp-like, not gorilla-like. In addition, hair samples taken from Bili ape ground nests have been shown to contain mitochondrial DNA similar to that of chimps, and the fruit-rich content of examined faecal droppings is again consistent with a chimp identity - although, perplexingly, the droppings themselves outwardly resemble those of gorillas. So what is the Bili ape - a gorilla-sized chimp (freak population?/new subspecies?/new species?), an aberrant form of gorilla (freak population?/new subspecies?/new species?) that has evolved certain chimp-like anatomical and behavioural characteristics, or even possibly a genuine chimpanzee-gorilla hybrid? No confirmed crossbreeding between chimp and gorilla has ever been recorded, but the two species are sufficiently similar genetically to engender viable offspring. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down exclusively from the maternal parent, so if such interspecific matings are indeed occurring they must involve female chimps and male gorillas, to explain why the mitochondrial DNA from the Bili ape samples is chimp-like. Happily, however, the Bili ape's identity was eventually unmasked. Comprehensive DNA analyses, including nuclear DNA (thus shedding light on both the maternal and the paternal lineages of the Bili ape), had been underway since autumn 2003 at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, under the auspices of conservation geneticist Dr Ed Louis, and involving DNA comparisons with gorillas, chimps, and also bonobos (pygmy chimps). So too had analyses of mitochondrial DNA taken from faecal samples conducted by Dr Cleve Hicks and other Amsterdam University colleagues, who had also examined these primates' behaviour in the field. And in 2006, this latter team announced that their findings all confirmed that the Bili ape belongs to a known subspecies of chimp – the eastern chimpanzee Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii. Presumably, therefore, the Bili ape's very distinctive morphological features have evolved through its population's isolation from others of this subspecies but involve relatively little change at the genetic level. After years of mystery and intrigue, the riddle of the Bili ape had at last been solved.
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Post by brobear on Jan 27, 2021 8:15:55 GMT -5
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210122112310.htm Chimpanzee friends fight together to battle rivals. Strong social bonds increase the willingness to join others in battle. Chimpanzees, one of the closest relatives of humans, cooperate on a group level -- in combative disputes, they even cooperate with group members to whom they are not related. Those involved in fights with neighbouring groups put themselves at risk of serious injury or even death.
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Post by brobear on Feb 2, 2021 6:11:13 GMT -5
roaring.earth/giant-chimps-known-as-lion-killers/?utm_source=ofb&utm_medium=pa&utm_campaign=8297&fbclid=IwAR21p078-Sbg-V02i_yxuH4Vwr6sDlrYbbZLeoOGBiIQ7lHKBNtcXLHDILM Legendary Giant Chimps Known as “Lion Killers” Feast on Big Cats and Walk Upright Local legends have long stated that a clan of giant, lion-killing chimps roam the Bili Forest of the Democratic Public of the Congo. Known as the Bili apes, or Bondo mystery apes, the cryptic group of chimps has been said to kill big cats, catch fish, and howl at the moon. It wasn’t until recently that scientists were actually able to make their way across 25 miles of thick jungle and croc-infested rivers to study the infamous apes. As It turns out, there are indeed a troop of “super-sized” chimps that, while they haven’t been recorded howling at the moon, have unique gorilla-like characteristics and an unusual appetite for wild cats. Dr. Thurston Hicks of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology spent 18 arduous months observing the apes in the field. He witnessed first hand some rather unusual chimpanzee behavior — namely an individual feasting on a leopard carcass — though he couldn’t determine if the chimp had been the one to kill the big cat. Hicks also observed that these particular chimps nested on the ground like gorillas, but in all other ways acted like chimps. And, unlike most wild animals, these guys possessed no fear of humans, but were rather quite curious at the sight of the researchers. This lack of fear is likely due to the fact that they have limited contact with gun-wiedling humans. “The further away from the road the more fearless the chimps got,” said Hicks. In addition to this unique behavior, the Bili chimps are extraordinary in their appearance, too; they’re substantially larger than their eastern chimp cousins and are commonly seen walk upright. Standing up to 5.5 feet tall, these guys boast a footprint larger than that of a gorilla. They also have a gorilla-like prominent brow ridge, making their facial appearance distinct. Researchers speculate that the population is inbred, which explains some of the unique characteristics. Unfortunately, the Bili apes are now under threat from poachers that began coming into the area around 2007. Adults have reportedly been killed for their meat, while babies are being sold at local markets. Some of the only known footage of these apes was captured a few years ago using a remote trap camera set up in deep in the northern forest of the Congo. Watch: ( short video on site )
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Post by brobear on Feb 2, 2021 8:08:19 GMT -5
Quote: He witnessed first hand some rather unusual chimpanzee behavior — namely an individual feasting on a leopard carcass — though he couldn’t determine if the chimp had been the one to kill the big cat. *We are all here aware that discovering one animal feeding upon the carcass of another is not proof of predation. However, it does open-up the door of possibility.
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Post by King Kodiak on Mar 7, 2021 14:52:55 GMT -5
Wild chimpanzees deprived a leopard of its kill: Implications for the origin of hominin confrontational scavenging
Abstract
This study reports the first observed case of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) obtaining animal prey freshly killed by a sympatric leopard (Panthera pardus) and scavenging it with the leopard still nearby. This observation has important implications for the emergence of confrontational scavenging, which may have played a significant role in human evolution. Many scholars agree that eating meat became important during human evolution, and hominins first obtained meat by scavenging. However, it is debatable whether scavenging behavior was "passive" or "confrontational (power)." The latter is more dangerous, as it requires facing the original predator, and it is thus considered to have been important for the evolution of several human traits, including cooperation and language. Chimpanzees do scavenge meat, although rarely, but no previous evidence of confrontational scavenging has hitherto emerged. Thus, it was assumed that they are averse to confrontation with even leopard-sized predators. However, in the observed case the chimpanzees frequently emitted waa barks, which indicated that they were aware of the leopard's presence but they nevertheless continued to eat the scavenged meat. In addition, we compiled and reviewed 49 cases of chimpanzee encounters with animal carcasses in the Mahale Mountains of Tanzania in 1980-2017. Chimpanzees scavenged meat in 36.7% of these cases, and tended to eat the meat when it was fresh or if the animal species was usually hunted by chimpanzees. However, no evidence indicated that carcasses were avoided when leopard involvement was likely. These results suggest that chimpanzee-sized hominins could potentially confront and deprive leopard-size carnivores of meat.
www.researchgate.net/publication/333538218_Wild_chimpanzees_deprived_a_leopard_of_its_kill_Implications_for_the_origin_of_hominin_confrontational_scavenging
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Post by King Kodiak on Apr 26, 2021 18:29:42 GMT -5
How chimps outmuscle humans
Contrary to popular lore that portrays chimpanzees as having “super strength,” studies have only found modest differences with humans. But our closest relatives are slightly stronger by several measures, and now a study comparing the muscle fibers of different primates reveals a potential explanation: Humans may have traded strength for endurance, allowing us to travel farther for food.
To determine why chimpanzees are stronger than humans—at least on a pound-for-pound basis—Matthew O’Neill, an anatomy and evolution researcher at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix, and colleagues biopsied the thigh and calf muscles of three chimps housed at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. They dissected the samples into individual fibers and stimulated them to figure out how much force they could generate. Comparing their measurements to known data from humans, the team found that, at the individual fiber level, muscle output was about the same.
Given that different fibers throughout the muscle might make a difference, the researchers conducted a more thorough analysis of tissue samples from pelvic and hind limb muscles of three chimpanzee cadavers from various zoos and research institutes around the United States. Previous studies in mammals have found that muscle composition between trunk, forelimb, and hind limb muscles is largely the same, O’Neill says, so he’s confident the samples are representative across most of the chimp’s musculature. The team used a technique called gel electrophoresis to break down the muscles into individual muscle fibers, and compared this breakdown to human muscle fiber data.
Muscle fibers mostly come in two flavors: myosin heavy chain (MHC) I, which are slow-twitch fibers, and MHC II, or fast- twitch fibers. The latter contract more quickly and generate more force in quick bursts, but fatigue more quickly than slow-twitch fibers. The researchers found that whereas human muscle contains, on average, about 70% slow-twitch fibers and 30% fast-twitch fibers, chimpanzee muscle is about 33% slow-twitch fibers and 66% fast-twitch fibers.
The team ran its data through a computer program that built virtual muscles corresponding to the fiber compositions of humans and chimps, then simulated how much power each muscle could theoretically generate during a single burst. The chimp muscle, they learned, was about 1.35 times more powerful than the human one, they report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
When the researchers then looked at the muscle fiber breakdown in mammals such as mice, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, horses, lemurs, and macaques, they found that only two animals regularly had more slow-twitch fibers: a small, lethargic primate called the slow loris and humans.
O’Neill says though fast-twitch fibers might give chimps and other mammals an advantage during high-intensity strength tasks like lifting heavy rocks or climbing a tree, humans’ slow-twitch fibers are better suited for endurance tasks like distance running. The researchers propose that early hominins’ muscles gradually became dominated by slow-twitch fibers as they gave up arboreal life and adapted to traveling across long distances to hunt and forage. Another benefit of slow-twitch fibers is they consume less metabolic energy, he adds, potentially freeing the body to devote more resources to other adaptations, like bigger brains.
Anne Burrows, a biological anthropologist at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, whose research focuses on primate biomechanics but was not involved with the work, says the study is well-designed and convincing. "Instead of thinking about the results as pointing to greater strength in chimpanzees, we might instead want to consider … what the greater percentage of slow-twitch fibers in humans means to our unique locomotion method, bipedalism," Burrows says. "I think that's the bigger story here."
Burrows does have reservations about the authors’ evolutionary arguments. “Before I fully buy into that interpretation, I would like to see data from upper limb musculature in chimpanzees and humans, and I would like data from gorillas and orangutans,” she says.
Adrienne Zihlman, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is more skeptical still of the study’s evolutionary ramifications. There simply isn’t enough known about the musculature of early hominins to speculate about their muscle fiber distributions, she says, so linking slow-twitch fibers to human evolution is a stretch. “The muscle fiber finding is an interesting factoid, but the tale that they spin based on that just doesn’t come from their data.
www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/how-chimps-outmuscle-humans
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Apr 28, 2021 20:01:21 GMT -5
Looks like we humans and the slow loris are the weakest pound to pound.
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Post by brobear on Apr 29, 2021 2:52:38 GMT -5
In my own words, from reading about T-rex with his tiny arms each with only two clawed fingers as opposed to his massively big, heavy, powerful skull. "Nature" gives here and takes from there. A bear is strong and durable, but lacks the speed, agility, and leaping ability of a big cat. The human went all-out for brains and hands which can manipulate inanimate objects - and be inventive. Thus, when in comes down to physical ability, we are slow and weak in comparison to other medium to large wild animals.
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