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New Great Ape Discovered?

DrLudicrous writes "CNN is running a story about sightings of an ape in central Africa that doesn't seem to fit the description of known apes. Pictures of the animal are rare, but it seems slightly taller than most gorillas, with a flatter face. One woman even reported seeing it walk upright on two legs. It has been hypothesized that the ape might be a new species, a subspecies, or perhaps a hybrid between two other species."

337 comments

  1. Here are more pictures. by rkz · · Score: 4, Funny
    1. Re:Here are more pictures. by compubomb · · Score: 1

      heh.., i'm not an ape i say, just a geek.

    2. Re:Here are more pictures. by tkittel · · Score: 5, Funny

      > This is another picture of the great ape in its natural habitat

      and here is yet another great ape...

    3. Re:Here are more pictures. by Queuetue · · Score: 0

      That's what Darl looks like? What a greasy hump.

    4. Re:Here are more pictures. by doi · · Score: 0, Offtopic
      --
      A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's an erection for?
    5. Re:Here are more pictures. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about bushorchimp?

    6. Re:Here are more pictures. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Holy shit, he even looks like a greasy sleazebag.

    7. Re:Here are more pictures. by macdaddy357 · · Score: 1

      If this new ape will stop being so skittish, there is a company that will hire him. Primate Programming.

      --
      How ya like dat?
    8. Re:Here are more pictures. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That looks like a mere baboon

    9. Re:Here are more pictures. by Bush+Pig · · Score: 1

      He looks like ... I dunno ... some kind of used-car salesman.

      --
      What a long, strange trip it's been.
  2. That explains it... by Call+Me+Black+Cloud · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wondered why CowboyNeal hasn't been showing up in the polls...he's been out camping!

    Let me say that I like CN and think he should be in all the polls. This post is intended to be good natured and not mean spririted.

    1. Re:That explains it... by bj8rn · · Score: 2, Funny

      CowboyNeal is the leader of the infamous group of guerilla gorillas also known as the Attack Monkeys, who have earned their ill reputation by generating the Slashdot front page.

      --
      Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
    2. Re:That explains it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not camping... campaigning. He's running for governor.

  3. _Clever_ tricks? by errl · · Score: 5, Funny

    From the article:

    """
    Williams and the trackers used some clever tricks to lure the mystery apes.
    Pictures of the 'mystery ape' are rare because the animals are skittish and aggressive. Here a researcher captured an image from afar of one of the animals with her offspring.

    "One of my trackers made the sound of a duiker, a small antelope, as if it were in pain," said Williams. Four or five of the mystery primates fell for the ruse and came running to kill it.
    """

    I'd classify that as a stupid trick. Come on, sounding like something the animals want to kill doesn't seem clever at all methinks :).

    1. Re:_Clever_ tricks? by Queuetue · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's all relative. It's more clever than making a sound like an angry elephant or a machine gun.

    2. Re:_Clever_ tricks? by MrHanky · · Score: 2, Funny

      Of course, the right thing to do is to make the sound of a close relative shouting: 'Developers! Developers! Developers!' That usually makes the impression of a loveable company.

    3. Re:_Clever_ tricks? by lorax · · Score: 1

      Can you make the sound of a duiker in pain?

      Didn't think so. Perhaps that was the clever part

    4. Re:_Clever_ tricks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Different species, that's the balled ape.

    5. Re:_Clever_ tricks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Reminds of show about "dangerous encounters" I saw on TV once. A stupid hunter had covered himself in doe urine. His wife was filming with a camcorder as a buck came up to him and started "attacking" him. My SO and I were watching this "attack", laughing our asses off. The buck was trying to mount him repeatedly. The poor buck was probably wondering why this "doe in heat" was being so difficult to "get it on" with.

    6. Re:_Clever_ tricks? by S.Lemmon · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well no I can't, but I can make the sound of a duiker filled with ennui.

    7. Re:_Clever_ tricks? by andrewski · · Score: 0

      You obviously haven't ever spent time in the woods, have you?

      It's a hunter's trick. It's called 'calling animals' and people have been doing it for a very long time.

  4. What is amazing is.. by SystematicPsycho · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If there was one, then there would of had to be thousands at the time the species was alive. It's amazing that only a piece of what could of been an entire species is ever found.
    --

    --
    Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
    1. Re:What is amazing is.. by errl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not really, they state that it could be a hybrid of a gorilla and a chimp, if that is the case, the hybrid could have been quite newly "created".

    2. Re:What is amazing is.. by BiggerIsBetter · · Score: 1, Insightful

      There are tribes in the Amazon that have been undiscovered until very recently, and there are untold numbers of smaller species that are discovered regularly.

      The impressive thing here is that it's a large primate that acts rather unlike other primates. My call is either it's a hoax, or it's that missing link anthropologists have been searching for. If it's the latter, it's a huge discovery.

      --
      Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
    3. Re:What is amazing is.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hi, these beasts are still alive. Read the article?

    4. Re:What is amazing is.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about hybrid gorilla/human or chimp/human?

    5. Re:What is amazing is.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...at the time the species was alive

      Re-read the post, moron. (look before you post).

    6. Re:What is amazing is.. by leandrod · · Score: 3, Informative
      > or it's that missing link anthropologists have been searching for

      This would be more like evolutionary biologists than anthropologists; the later are concerned with man as man, not as an animal.

      Anyway, tall order. It is not a specie that will fill the gap. There would need to be a big number of fossiles and (or) living species discovered to fill the multiple gaps in evolutionary evidence, and not only near man but all over the classification of animals and vegetables.

      --
      Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
      DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
      GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
    7. Re:What is amazing is.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " If there was one, then there would of had to be thousands at the time the species was alive."
      I suggest you read the post again jerk. Try the phrases "would of" and "had to" and then "at the time the species were alive".

    8. Re:What is amazing is.. by BiggerIsBetter · · Score: 1

      Fair enough.

      By "missing link", I guess I'm really referring to the gap between us and lesser primates, rather than the purely evolutionary chain. If it's living rather than fossilised then so much the better.

      It's always seemed odd to me that we are "up here" while apes and chimps are "down there" and other mammals kind of dribble down from that. Why nothing in-between? It would be cool if there was some other species that slightly filled that gap bewteen us and the animals.

      --
      Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
    9. Re:What is amazing is.. by TomV · · Score: 2, Insightful

      although technically speaking, if they spotted a female with offspring and it IS a gorilla-chimp hybrid then neither gorillas, chimps, nor this creature would constitute separate species from eachother.

      TomV

    10. Re:What is amazing is.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Some of the behaviors mentioned seem to imply that an unique intellect as compared to other great apes is at work here. This creature could well be evidence of a shift from chimp lineage to a slightly different direction, not necessarily the hominid direction but toward being the dominant species in that ecosystem. They might be holdout soldiers from the Planet of the Apes, though, I'd be careful.

    11. Re: What is amazing is.. by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Insightful


      > My call is either it's a hoax, or it's that missing link anthropologists have been searching for. If it's the latter, it's a huge discovery.

      No one is looking for any "missing link". The fossil record is full of "missing links", and the joke is that every time you find one you create two more, one to either side.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    12. Re: What is amazing is.. by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Informative


      > It's always seemed odd to me that we are "up here" while apes and chimps are "down there" and other mammals kind of dribble down from that. Why nothing in-between?

      Right now is sort of an anomaly in the family tree. For most of "human" history there were multiple species of "humans" living concurrently, and there were formerly many more species of ape alive at the same time too.

      Also, the lack of in-between-ness is exaggerated by the nonlinearity of what has been going on in our species. If you compare the material culture of modern humans to that of chimps it looks like an unbridgeable gulf, but if you instead compare our material culture of 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, and 1,000,000 years ago to the current material culture of chimps, the gap really closes up.

      It appears that a small difference in cognitive ability can make a huge difference when its results are allowed to accumulate over the millenia.

      > It would be cool if there was some other species that slightly filled that gap bewteen us and the animals.

      True, but arguably there already is. Take away the chimps and observe how wonderfully they fill the gap between ourselves and gorillas. Take away gorillas and observe how well they fill the gap between us+chimps and the other apes.

      Our corner of the family tree is an interestingly dense bush as it is, and would be even more interesting if not for the extinctions over the past few million years.

      Recommended readings:

      "The Culture of Chimpanzees" (PDF) Overview of culture among chimpanzees.

      "Planet of the Apes" (Just a tease; see the full article in your neighborhood library.) Breadth of the ape family tree in the Miocene.

      "Hominid Species" What we currently know about our sub-branch of the family tree.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    13. Re:What is amazing is.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is amazing is... how useless the karma system is. This bozo posts twice in 5 minutes without reading a word of the article, and without a clue wtf he is talking about. Assuming this is nothing new for him, how the hell does he have excellent karma?

    14. Re:What is amazing is.. by SystematicPsycho · · Score: 1

      Hrmm, I did know what I was talking about - I admit I didn't read the article (I just didn't this time, rarely don't) but I still think I had some interesting points. Leave the article aside for a second and think about what I said, ontopic nonetheless.

      Just for you I won't use my "No Karma Bonus" this time.

      --
      Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
    15. Re:What is amazing is.. by Skjellifetti · · Score: 2, Informative

      Horses and donkeys are separate species but they can still produce offspring called mules. The test is whether they can produce fertile offspring. Mules are usually sterile due to different numbers of chromosomes between donkeys and horses that kill the reproductive cells in the hybrid.

    16. Re:What is amazing is.. by jeff+munkyfaces · · Score: 1

      bull

    17. Re:What is amazing is.. by SEE · · Score: 1

      The fossil record attests to numerous species that were more humanlike than chimps but not direct ancestors of modern man. The genus of Australopithecines and the Neanderthal (sub)species of Homo, for example.

    18. Re:What is amazing is.. by 1u3hr · · Score: 1
      It would be cool if there was some other species that slightly filled that gap bewteen us and the animals.

      There were, but we killed them. Most recently the Neanderthals, which we (Homo Sapiens sapiens) wiped out in the last Ice Age (recent DNA studies ruled out the theory that we interbred).

    19. Re: What is amazing is.. by crusher-1 · · Score: 0, Redundant

      "It appears that a small difference in cognitive ability can make a huge difference when its results are allowed to accumulate over the millenia."

      Look up the work of Wernicke and Broca. Both are involved with the study of speech centers in humans. Broca studied the motor abilities and Wernicke studied sensory abilities. As a neurologic nurse I have seen the effects of damage done to these areas of the brain. When a patient has damage done to Broca area the are unable to generate speech due to the inability to form phonems. They ability to comprehend spoken and written language is unimpaired. They often resort to using pen and paper to communicate - but spoken words are unintelligible for the most part. However, as the patient recovers some degree of ability it is often observable that syntax is undisturbed and intact.

      Wernicke's aphasia is more debilitating. This is the area for literal comprehension. Damage to this area results in to aspect of the same phenomenon. Patients can neither generate sentence in a coherent manner, though speech generations, phonems and words are unchanges. It is in the area of syntax that the patient is unable to communicate. Their sentences come out as a dissociated mix of complete words. Sentences like "the car is with bananas green, be large dog apples and far away cups". Each word is complete and well generated, but the patient is unable to make any sensical statements. The same holds true in auditory stimulii. The patients generally become very very frustrated because they can neither understand spoken or written language. It has been reported by those that recover that in the same manner in which they themselves spoken non-sensical statements and sentences that what they heard was as the same - people seemed to talk gibberish at them.

      There are many degrees to these pathologies with varying and quite interesting results. Like the inability to speak sensical references to people, but to construct perfectly (or near perfectly) sentences about inanimated objects or circumstances, or vice verse.

      So, what does this have to do with primates? Think about other studies that have been done with communications in Kentucky (IIRC) with chimps and abstract symbols for communicating desires, wants, needs, states of being, and memories. Or at Berkeley with gorillas with sign language in the same basic manner. It has been shown that these primates do possess the ability to communicate in very limited but congent manner. They have been able to express emotion - fear, happiness, anger, affections, confusion, as well as memories of such things as dreams and past incidences and experiences in a contextual manner.

      What put the human being in a adventatious position was the ability to both speek and write. To relate thoughts and experiences via observations and memories to one another. By being able to construct a form of coherent communication via abstract symbolism and sounds the human species can retain, pass on, and hence build a knowledge base. In this fashion each generation can more fully benifit the experiences and knowledge of the previous. The "lower" primates have this ability but only in a very very limited fashion and only in non-verbal/language context - such as observation and mimickary as in the case of using a grass reed to extract ants from a hole or to build a bed of leaves.

      The subtle but dramatic development of a group of neurons on the (generally) left side of the brain has been the difference from being just another relatively smart ape or a human. If it were not for speech and language we would most likely have been killed off by more phyiscially endowed competitors.

    20. Re:What is amazing is.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      It's always seemed odd to me that we are "up here" while apes and chimps are "down there" and other mammals kind of dribble down from that. Why nothing in-between?

      This does not describe the situation at all; you're just anthropomorphizing (which is something your species does a lot of. :-)

      Consider: the nearest relative of man is chimpanzee (measured by DNA similarity.) But guess what? The nearest relative of chimpanzee is man! So while the difference between, say, a chimp and a gorilla might look small to you compared to the yawning chasm between us and and any other species, in fact, that difference is greater than the difference between us and the chimp.

    21. Re:What is amazing is.. by mishac · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Thats not a completely valid test...over the years they've found a few female mules capable of being impregnated by a horse or donkey. In addition, female big-cat hybrids, like "Ligers" and "Tigons" or "Jaguleps", etc, are often fertile, and can be impregnated to produce 3-species hybrids (Do a google search for "Lijagulep" or "Ti-liger"...to lazy to do it myself). So maybe the criteria should be that species are seperate if they can't produce fertile *MALE* offspring....

    22. Re:What is amazing is.. by leandrod · · Score: 1
      > I'm really referring to the gap between us and lesser primates, rather than the purely evolutionary chain

      This is one issue, how many gaps there are. But remember to consider also the other issue: how wide the gaps are. Lots of gaps, not only between us and lesser primates but also among other primates and in several other points of the evolutionary 'family tree', are big enough that not only one or two fossiles or species are needed to fill up, but several.

      It's always temerary to hold this as definitive, but from what I talked with a microbiologist, they (biologists) have next to no hope of filling any significant gap. Basically they think that, like petrol, most has already been discovered; there is potential for new discoveries, but nothing proportional to the quantity and size of the gaps.

      --
      Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
      DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
      GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
    23. Re:What is amazing is.. by MuParadigm · · Score: 1


      Apparently this story has been developing for a while. There's another article from April on the National Geographic site:

      http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/ 04 14_030314_strangeape.html

    24. Re:What is amazing is.. by amRadioHed · · Score: 1
      The impressive thing here is that it's a large primate that acts rather unlike other primates. My call is either it's a hoax, or it's that missing link anthropologists have been searching for. If it's the latter, it's a huge discovery.
      This being a hoax sounds very unlikely to me. This isn't like a bigfoot sighting where the only evidence is grainy footage from amateur's and the like. These creatures have been found and studied by real primatologist, and the DNA in their feces has been analyzed. This would be a stunningly difficult hoax to pull off.
      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    25. Re:What is amazing is.. by timeOday · · Score: 1

      So gorillas and chimps would then be one and the same species?

    26. Re:What is amazing is.. by junkgrep · · Score: 1

      It is not a missing link. The missing link would HAVE to be a fossil: a species currently living today could, at best, be as DESCENDANT of the missing link... just as we are. In any case, I don't this ape is suspected to be anywhere near our neck of the evolutionary woods. It could be an interesting wrinkle for the development of primates as a whole, but probably not the human branch.

    27. Re:What is amazing is.. by DarkZero · · Score: 1

      If there was one, then there would of had to be thousands at the time the species was alive. It's amazing that only a piece of what could of been an entire species is ever found.

      Actually, instead of being its own species, this creature could just be the primate equivalent to a Liger, which is the fairly rare offspring of a lion and a tiger that most people aren't even aware of. In the case of the Liger, as is possible in this case, the result of the mating is a sort of super-beast that's larger and stronger than either of the species that it is descended from.

      Actually, the Tigon, another form of lion-tiger hybrid that is actually a bit smaller than its parents, might be a better example. The mating of a tiger and a lioness is very rare and if it produces a male, the male will be infertile, which makes the Tigon a real animal, but an incredibly rare one. And once a female Tigon has mated again, it is technically no longer a Tigon, because it can't mate with a male Tigon and be "pure bred". The resulting offspring, regardless of what lion or tiger species it is from, looks quite different than the female Tigon.

      So really, they may have found the few living specimens of this creature, and even if it's very rare, it might not be on the verge of extinction, because it might not be a real species.

    28. Re:What is amazing is.. by Ella+the+Cat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      From my last visit to the museum combined with reading, I recall that "species" is one of those concepts that works well most of the time, but gets fuzzy at the boundaries. So at sometime T we have N species, at T +100,000 years we have N+1 species, (assuming no extinctions in the meantime for this example) but pinning down exactly when N became N+1 isn't easy, or even -meaningful-. I may be wrong, but I do have the wit to realise it's a touchy subject in science.

    29. Re:What is amazing is.. by NuShrike · · Score: 1

      Sooo, is this Bigfoot's hometown?

    30. Re:What is amazing is.. by viperblades · · Score: 1

      If we evolved from apes why have we stopped evolving? shouldnt we be devolving right now?

    31. Re:What is amazing is.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It could be an interesting wrinkle for the development of primates as a whole, but probably not the human branch.
      That's not absolutely true considering a recent study that puts chimpanzees in the same family tree as humans(closer to us than other great apes such the gorilla,etc). Now we have another probable great ape discovery, that IMHO looks even more morphologically closer to us than chimps.

    32. Re:What is amazing is.. by joeykiller · · Score: 1

      I'm reading the parent post in IE 6 on Windows XP, and the URL seems to be formatted wrong. The part from 2003/04/0414_030314 gets a space, and reads 2003/04/04 14_030314. Is this IE's fault, or does Slashcode mess up the formatting?

      Anyway, here's a link you can click just in case you experience the same rubbish as me: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/04 14_030314_strangeape.html.

      This National Geographic article got much better pictures of the new (?) species than CNN. Also it seems as if this story isn't so new at all (it started in 1908), and that the mystery species most probably is a chimpanzee, according to DNA tests.

      Nevertheless it's an interesting story!

    33. Re: What is amazing is.. by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 1

      You're confusing the pop-science of the newspapers ('we found a tooth! Here's a picture of the missing link plus family, campfire, and clothing' See how true evolution is!!)

      Real science is a moving target - every time you find an answer you generate two more questions, and your view of the world changes slightly. There's also the '90% of everyting is crap' rule, which also applies to scientific theories :) So no, we don't know everything about evolutionary processes but there's a mass of evidence that something like it happened (and continues to happen)... *exactly* what is still the subject of debate, which is great fun to argue over a beer.

      (I've heard the pop-science evolution described as 'evolutionism' - a religion that like other religions says that one single fact explains all other facts... evolution theory != evolutionism (hopefully)).

    34. Re:What is amazing is.. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      It's always seemed odd to me that we are "up here" while apes and chimps are "down there" and other mammals kind of dribble down from that.

      I'm reminded of the Wizard of Id strip where King Id is visiting with a sultan. The majordomo introduces him to the hundred wives "each more beautiful than the next". The wiz whispers to the majordomo "Is each really more beautiful than the next?" to which the majordomo replies "Only if you line them up that way."

      "At the top" is defined as "Most like us." Of course we're "at the top" - the best at our particular specialties - while our closest surviving nonhuman relatives are "down there" a bit below us while more distant relatives "kinda dribble down from that".

      Why nothing in-between? It would be cool if there was some other species that slightly filled that gap bewteen us and the animals.

      Have you considered whether we might be so darned GOOD at our specialties that we outcompeted or absorbed the rest of 'em?

      But there is some evidence that humans have a drive to make war on anything nonhuman that talks. "Competitor for the niche." Something like cats and dogs (where the battle still goes on because the niches only overlap partially, so nobody goes extinct.)

      According to this theory gorillas and chimps don't get exterminated because they lack a part of the brain that's necessary to emit vocal speech (although they seem to have enough of the rest of the mechanisms to understand spoken human language and reply gramattically in sign.) So now this drive to furious genocide only comes into play in making war on other humans who speak differently and have a different appearance - and then only after prolonged propaganda about how the enemy is really non-human.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    35. Re: What is amazing is.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps you should take your discoveries to a major university and take some credit for them. Science seems repleat with an abundance of "gaps" that you seem to think are filled.

      Maybe you should take yourself to a basic comprehension class. You completely misunderstood the post you replied to.

    36. Re: What is amazing is.. by sparrow_hawk · · Score: 1

      Just a nitpick -- as I understand it, it's not so much that chimps and gorillas are our ancestors as humans and chimps split most recently from some common ancestor, which in turn split from gorillas, and so on. It's kind of a branch-like thing, not a line of descent, like we evolved and the chimps didn't.

      Is anyone else reminded of Michael Crichton's novel _Congo_?

    37. Re:What is amazing is.. by CaptainAvatar · · Score: 1

      True. It's also the case that there will always be gaps ... once you find a species to fill a gap, you've now got two more gaps on either side of it ... it's always going to be an issue when applying a discrete concept such as that of species to what is in reality a continuum.

      --
      The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
    38. Re:What is amazing is.. by Lodragandraoidh · · Score: 1

      "...I do have the wit to realise it's a touchy subject in science."

      Science doesn't get reality right a good precentage of the time; of course, this is just brushed under the carpet as 'statistical anomalies' where it doesn't fit a particular neatly held concept of how the system being measured works - and the simple act of measuring it can change the thing you intend to measure anyway.

      Reality is not black and white - locked like ice crystals in a frozen pond. Reality is a constantly changing and evolving mess - that will usually change at the very point where we think we have it locked down. Reality is Murphy's Law in action.

      The ultimate hubris is to think you know, without a shred of doubt, how anything really is. Murphy usually has a way of deflating our ego at that point; if we are lucky it doesn't involve the death of anyone.

      Everything is just a rough approximation, hence the abandonment of my parent's myopic view of race, religeon, and the primacy of man's scientific control over mother nature. My life is an attempt to suck less than my parents. So far, so good.

      --

      Lodragan Draoidh
      The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
    39. Re:What is amazing is.. by forgotmypassword · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Science doesn't get reality right a good precentage of the time; of course, this is just brushed under the carpet as 'statistical anomalies' where it doesn't fit a particular neatly held concept of how the system being measured works - and the simple act of measuring it can change the thing you intend to measure anyway.

      Ehh. Most all biologists know that the concept of species is nonexistant idea only used for simple comprehension. There is no scientific model that has ever been found to be absolutely true. Even Dirac's theory of the electron is just a model.

      I don't think you get what science is about at all. Maybe you had a bad teacher in high school or something. But a scientist that sweeps disagreeable data under the carpet is a bad scientist. And investigating events in nature that disagree with well established models is a BIG and IMPORTANT part of science.

      Reality is not black and white - locked like ice crystals in a frozen pond. Reality is a constantly changing and evolving mess - that will usually change at the very point where we think we have it locked down. Reality is Murphy's Law in action.

      Well science does assume that the world is rational. It would be reasonable to argue against that assumption, but doing so with a computer is a bit hypocritical. Because even if you can argue that science does not give us the ultimate truth (and you can), you cannot deny that it brings many short term gains that other philosophies do not.

      The ultimate hubris is to think you know, without a shred of doubt, how anything really is. Murphy usually has a way of deflating our ego at that point; if we are lucky it doesn't involve the death of anyone.

      That is a key point to science. I could go so far as to say that it is the great and golden rule of Feynman himself! Nothing is known to be sure, everything is to be questioned. This is the great difference between scientific thinking and dogmatic thinking. A scientific thinker has no faith.

      And none of this has anything to do with Murphy's Law - the thing that goes wrong must first be possible.

      Everything is just a rough approximation, hence the abandonment of my parent's myopic view of race, religeon, and the primacy of man's scientific control over mother nature. My life is an attempt to suck less than my parents. So far, so good.

      I must say that neither Einstein nor Feynman had such silly ideas about the Truth in science.

      And don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because your stupid parents liked something doesn't mean that it is stupid too.

    40. Re:What is amazing is.. by Bush+Pig · · Score: 1

      We probably ate them as "bush meat".

      --
      What a long, strange trip it's been.
    41. Re:What is amazing is.. by leandrod · · Score: 1
      > it's always going to be an issue when applying a discrete concept such as that of species to what is in reality a continuum

      You are probably right, but not only... there are lots of biologists who have evolution as a working hypothesis for changes, yet think evidence is not strong for it being the sole mechanism of the creation of life and personality.

      --
      Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
      DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
      GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
    42. Re: What is amazing is.. by jav1231 · · Score: 1

      Ummm...maybe you should take a course in rhetoric...you completely missed the fact that I was being sarcastic.

    43. Re: What is amazing is.. by jav1231 · · Score: 1

      I appreciate your view on that. It's at least willing to admit science is in fact a moving target (often, if not largely). You seem to take a much more pragmatic approach than those who say "Hey! We know how the universe will end!" I found it interesting that the other Slashdot post dealing with that topic followed it up with "we know it will likely happen one of two ways." So...the truth is...we DON'T know how the universe will end.

    44. Re:What is amazing is.. by PhuCknuT · · Score: 1

      There is no missing link between us and chimps and gorillas because we didn't evolve from them. Humans and apes split from a common ancestor a few million years ago and since then have each gone our own way. The missing link would be that long dead ancestor that both species evolved from, not anything still alive today.

    45. Re:What is amazing is.. by FreakyDeaky · · Score: 1

      I'm not going to refute anything you said or correct you in any way. I just thought of an idea while reading your comment. What if apes evolved out of the ability to speak. I assume it is a genetic traight and that we may have purged or damn near purged all early apes with the ability to make a small attempt at speech so they would have retained all other abilities that weren't as appearent to the early humans. Now don't go yelling at me saying how stupid I am becuase I really put no research into this or anything I'm just asking if it was possible.

    46. Re: What is amazing is.. by Joey+Vegetables · · Score: 1

      For most of "human" history there were multiple species of "humans" living concurrently, and there were formerly many more species of ape alive at the same time too.

      If you observe a session of Congress, you can see that this is still true today.

    47. Re: What is amazing is.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you think that was sarcasm, perhaps you should retake your rhetoric course. And take that comprehension course while you're there. Then read the parent, re-read your 'sarcastic' post, then come back and tell us what you've learnt.

    48. Re:What is amazing is.. by junkgrep · · Score: 1

      That changes nothing: this would still be a descendant of early chimps, not the missing link itself. If it even was that closely related to us, of which there is still little evidence.

  5. evolution by Ugodown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article didn't mention anything about how it might be considered a 'missing link'. It it is indeed its own species, this discovery will have significant anthropological rammifications. If it is just a hybrid, this discovery might not mean much.

    --
    --- to swing on the spiral...
    1. Re:evolution by Pentagram · · Score: 1

      Unless it's a hybrid of humans and chimps or something.

    2. Re:evolution by 3waygeek · · Score: 0, Troll

      Like this guy?

    3. Re:evolution by SystematicPsycho · · Score: 1

      Until there is solid proof of anything then it may just be the equivalent of a big foot. I don't know how the skull fits into this though. I think the article falls short of explaining alot, like where in Africa these things are.
      --

      --
      Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
    4. Re:evolution by SystematicPsycho · · Score: 1

      Okay, my mistake - The forest in the north central area of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the mystery ape lives, is known to be populated by chimpanzees.

      --
      Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
    5. Re:evolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Spontaneous hybridization, if viable offspring result, might give some real insights into past anthro species apparent overlap.

  6. Only explanation by Compact+Dick · · Score: 1, Funny

    RMS is trekking in Africa.

    1. Re:Only explanation by Spunk · · Score: 1

      Well, it is his natural habitat.

  7. What in the world....... by Millbuddah · · Score: 2, Funny

    Has the good the good Dr. Jane Goodall been doing down there with all her research? Do not let the insanity continue good Doctor, leave the apes alone!

  8. Possibly not by shawkin · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Where was Steve Ballmer when these ape videos were shot?

    1. Re:Possibly not by krumms · · Score: 1

      Where was Steve Ballmer when these ape videos were shot?

      Hehe

      SB: "Bananas, Bananas, BANANAS!"

  9. Here are some pictures by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Here's a list of pictures of this ape compared to other species. The new ape is the one on the left.

    1. Re:Here are some pictures by xyvimur · · Score: 1

      Nah, the new specie is supposed to be taller...

    2. Re:Here are some pictures by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      How dare you insult the intelligence of apes!

    3. Re:Here are some pictures by javiercero · · Score: 1

      But this one is far more aggresive and dangerous.... plus it is more related to humans as it has some kind of speech abilities, it almost sounds like English but not quite.

      This is a most interesting specimen indeed, truely a missing link of sorts.. not fully ape, yet not fully human. This specimen also inhabits Northern American pastures, therefore its study should be of the upmost priority as this could be the very first native great ape of the Northen Americas.

    4. Re:Here are some pictures by tulare · · Score: 1

      Added text to defeat lameness filter, plus a mention that this reply applies to the whole thred.

      LMAO

      --
      political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
    5. Re:Here are some pictures by dpcgriffin · · Score: 1

      It's Bigfoot.
      It has to be Bigfoot.
      What else could it be?

      Besides, of course, a Bohemian Square-dancing Llama.

      --
      Step away from the idiocy. Now. But first, a word from your sponsors!
  10. It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by grug0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    At least that's what the National Geographic and the NPR articles conclude. It's easier to swallow than the idea of a chimp and a gorilla getting it on.

    1. Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by eenglish_ca · · Score: 1

      Personally, when the possibility of mixed species was suggested I could only think of one thing, human and chimp.

      --
      Checking out my form of escapism.
    2. Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by rde · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's easier to swallow than the idea of a chimp and a gorilla getting it on.
      Especially when you consider that gorillas are so poorly endowed when compared to their chimp cousins. To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson, that'd have to be one charming mother-fuckin' ape.

      For Darwin's sake, people. Evolution is a continuum; species don't magically transform from one to another. However long ago chimps and gorillas genetic company, it was a sufficiently short time ago (cosmically speaking) that there could well be variants around; especially when you consider how inaccessable areas like the Congo are for interlopers. They could cheerfully wander, undisturbed, for hundreds of millennia.

      One of the reasons that Creationists still hold such pernicious sway is that they can point at news reports (and even the odd paleontologist) who make sweeping statements that a few minutes' thought would tell you is silly. I can't say for certain that a chimp/gorilla hybrid is impossible, but it's certainly unlikely, especially given the alternatives.

    3. Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea...I mean a mule is a hybrid between a horse and a donkey. I forget which that is, i think it's a horse father and donkey mother. And if you mate them the other way around, horse mother and donkey father, you get this really short stubby horse.

      Are chimps and gorillas as close as horses and donkeys? I dont know enough about them myself to say. But assuming they are, it seems quite possible the two could mate and instead of getting a short stubby chimp, get a big honkin gorilla. I mean mules are used because they're stouter/stronger than donkeys OR horses, right? (i could be wrong here)

      Of course mules are typically sterile. But I remember reading something within the past year about a mule who had a baby - which was previously thought impossible.

      So with a little luck, a species of large chimp-gorilla hybrids sounds very possible.

    4. Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by squaretorus · · Score: 1

      My grasp of biology is piss poor - so can someone educate me a bit ( I know - I know - /. isnt the place!!!)

      Given that a big bastard great dane and a little mini poodle can 'get it on' whats to stop 'cross pollination' of the great apes? Donkeys and horses do it, why not chimps and gorrillas?

    5. Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by AndroidCat · · Score: 1
      The selective breeding (by man) of wolves into dogs into great danes and mini poodles is pretty recent. The sex protocol "handshaking" code hasn't had time to break. (With horses and donkeys, it's part broke.)

      Coyotes and wolves are cross-fertile too.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    6. Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If that would be possible, some nutcase would've tried to breed those hybrids as servants/slaves, and everybody would know about it...

    7. Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well. that would explain Mike Tyson.

    8. Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by naztafari · · Score: 1

      It's easier to swallow than the idea of a chimp and a gorilla getting it on. I agree. The mitochondrial DNA in the ape poo + chimp mother speculation by the author's pretty wacky too as it's highly doubtful that even if these guys are hybrids, they're 1st-generation. And if they're ape-human hybrids (right...) Real reason how AIDS crossed over from other primates to humans? Hahah...

    9. Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
      I'd point out that evolution is definitely not a continuum. Reproduction and mutation are discrete events.

      On a larger scale, fossil records show the appearance of new species happening very quickly. This is a favorite argument of creationists who argue that inter-species evolution is just another dogma.

      It's true that it is difficult to find evidence of a smooth, approximately continuous evolution from one species to another. Some modern theories advance a punctuated equilibrium where environmental changes suddenly impose substantially new selection rules. Dramatic events like climate change lead to quick changes in a few generations.

      We may or may not be witnessing this sort of evolution. But to support an evolutionary theory with the fossil evidence you need to reject the notion that major evolution has occured through approximately-continuous progressions rather than major discrete jumps.

      I'm not an expert in this material and can't provide references (and don't care to dig them up). I'm sure a google on punctuated equilibrium would be a good starting point.

    10. Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by MuParadigm · · Score: 2, Informative


      I'm with the parent poster on this. Mitochondrial DNA points to a chimp lineage. There's also a fairly clear photograph of a cadaver accompanying the Nat'l Geogrphic article, and it just looks like a giant chimp.

      Nesting is a common cultural attribute of both chimps and gorillas, and even though gorillas nest on the ground instead of in trees, I don't think it's much of an evolutionary jump for a giant chimp to decide it's too big to sleep in the trees also. And the fecal data indicates a diet more typical of chimps.

      Howling during the full moon is an interesting trait, though. I wonder if they're just irritated by the nighttime brightness or if it represents a primitive religious instinct. Of course, sightings are rare so the observed howling behavior might be anomalous rather than typical.

      Anyhow, if it is just a giant chimp, it'll be interesting to see how its behavior coincides with and differs from the other chimp species and humans.

    11. Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SLJ is a mf ape..let's get real.

    12. Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp by rde · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, I'm a punctuated equilibrium kind of guy myself; however, I don't think that negates my argument that evolution is a process of small, incremental changes.

      Remember, when you're talking about deep time, you're talking about events that occur over inconceivably huge timeframes. You used the word 'suddenly', but in geological terms, 'suddenly' can mean hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Radical change can come about in these brief periods, but that change is only one of timeframe and (usually) catastrophe; the mechanism of evolution doesn't change. Beasties still undergo evolution one random mutation at a time. There may be one critical mutation that changes our morphing buddy, but that once change is standing on the shoulders of many, many dwarves.

      With regard to the distinction between reproduction and mutation, I'm not sure what you mean. In order for mutations to be passed on, obviously the mutated creature must reproduce. Any offspring can, of course, inherit two sets of mutations and thus be quite different for either parent - and more so from grandparents - but those changes are still incremental in that it's improbable in the extreme for any one creature to mutate to such a degree that it's still a) potent and b) alive. I'm sure massive mutations do happen, and given the length of time life's been around, it's possible that some of the recipients were the better for it. But I can't imagine that that number is sufficiently high to be statistically relevent.

      For more on the interpretation of time in such matters, you can do far worse than to read In Search of Deep Time by Henry Gee. Punctuated Equilibrium as a theory was brought to the world by Niles Elderedge and Stephen Jay Gould; check out Elderedge's Time Frames for more.

  11. Planet of the Apes by xyvimur · · Score: 1

    It came from space to conquer the Earth :)

  12. finally... by el_salvador · · Score: 0, Funny

    they found the early ancestor of the linux programmer

  13. Obligatory reply by Eric+Ass+Raymond · · Score: 5, Funny

    I for one welcome our new ape masters.

    1. Re:Obligatory reply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I for one welcome our new ape masters.

      Good. Dr Cornelius wants to see you in his office for 'special time'.

    2. Re:Obligatory reply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is this the fabled "qijibo"?

      Oh, wait, North American balding ape...

    3. Re:Obligatory reply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape

  14. Some more by suteri · · Score: 3, Informative

    This guy seems to be the main researcher with these apes. Check this article.

    http://karlammann.com/bondo.html
  15. Does anyone one remember by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://robotics.stanford.edu/~oli/oliver.html

    ???????

  16. Re:How do they know? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Mercy. Please read the damn article, these things are still alive! Eyewitness accounts, pictures, etc. They are still fucking alive, the locals call them "Lion Eaters". Ok?

  17. Yeti at home by emptybody · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Have they taken foot casts to see if maybe they translate to the yeti casts seen previously?

    maybe this is not so far fetched after all..

    --
    comment directly in my journal
    1. Re:Yeti at home by jackb_guppy · · Score: 3, Funny

      I just do not get why the science community is so surprised...

      Do not the Bigfoot and Abominable Snowman Clans need time off for vacation from time to time.

    2. Re:Yeti at home by jck2000 · · Score: 1

      emptybody asks: Have they taken foot casts...?

      Yes. Scientists are especially puzzled by the missing toe.

    3. Re:Yeti at home by Dr.+Mojura · · Score: 1

      " Have they taken foot casts...? "

      yes"

      --
      "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." - Democritus
  18. Sorry to disappoint you... by neilmoore67 · · Score: 1

    that's Albert Einstein, he's been known about for at least 10 years already.

    --
    You've probably noticed that people's noses get bigger as they get older. That's because old people are huge liars.
  19. Exclusive photo! by PedsDoc · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    1. Re:Exclusive photo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hotlinking to that photograph? are you insane?

  20. Ape Poo by Davak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We compared fecal samples from this unknown animal to the DNA of captive gorillas, bonobos, and chimps," Louis said. "Our preliminary data shows that the mitochondrial DNA is chimp-like."

    But mitochondrial DNA is passed down only from the mother's side. So if this species or sub-species is a hybrid of a chimp mother and a gorilla father, current DNA would only identify information from the mother.

    First of all... yuck.

    If they can obtain enough cells from the poo to extract the mitochondrial DNA, why can't they PCR the rest of the DNA as well?

    It must be extremely difficult to find just the cells and resulting DNA from this new ape-like creature. Poo must contain a ton of cells from all the injested material. I just don't understand why it's easier to extract the DNA from the mitochondria? Seems if you have the mitochondria... then you have the cells which should contain ALL the nuclear material.

    Anyway... it's been a long time since my genetics/biochem courses.

    Davak
    1. Re:Ape Poo by scrub76 · · Score: 4, Informative
      There are a few reasons why mitochondrial DNA is preferable to genomic DNA for this sort of speciation study:

      1) Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is easier to work with. While a cell will have two copies of genomic DNA (one each inherited from the mother and father), the same cell will have hundreds to thousands of copies of mtDNA. This makes it easier to extract PCR-amplifyable DNA from a small number of cells.

      2) There is more variation (on a per nucleotide basis) in mtDNA than in genomic DNA, making it easier to resolve small differences between species (and possibly enabling differentiation between a new species and a hybrid).

      3) I think that mtDNA is inherited only from the mother, which means that there is no recombination between paternal and maternal DNA. This makes it easier to construct a genetic history of a sample (there is less 'noise' in the data).

    2. Re:Ape Poo by Yokaze · · Score: 1

      Um, mDNA is only some 16kbp long and is in ring-form. My guess it is much more stable than the DNA and therefor much easier to discriminate from all the linear DNA-fragments you have around, most of which are probably not ape-DNA.

      The problem is not the amount of DNA you have (as you said, there is very likey an abundant amount of it in there), but finding the pieces you are interested in.

      Just my fairly uneducated guess.

      --
      "Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
    3. Re:Ape Poo by r00zky · · Score: 1

      Maybe this animal ate a chimp...

      How can they tell? Wouldn't it be better to sedate one and get a blood sample? They took pictures of him but couldn't think about sedating it?

      Holy shit Batman!

      --
      I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
    4. Re:Ape Poo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      maybe mitochodrial DNA is smaller and faster to decode and compare.
      In this case DNA studie should come up soon.
      just a hunch.

    5. Re:Ape Poo by tulare · · Score: 4, Informative

      erm. I'll bite.

      First of all, the kind of cells that they are looking for are most likely those sloughed off the lower GI tract, as the hydrochloric acid in the stomach will pretty much completely do a number on the DNA of any ingested animal. Knowing that, they only have to look for a particular type of cell in the poo with a microscope to start building a sample. Poor Mr. Chimpanzee, Ingested, if he exists, won't produce such pristine cells anymore - these are higher primates, after all, and as such are going to prefer to chew their food rather than swallow it whole.

      As to the blood sample, perhaps you forgot to read the article which pointed out
      a) The not insignificant hazards in doing so both due to the animal's large size and apparent agressiveness, and also due to the fact that people in the Congo have recently been slaughtering one another with pretty much anything at hand - it's a difficult place to do research at the moment, and
      b) They are in fact in the process of habituating the apes so that such collections can become possible.

      As far as sedating one, think about the challenge - these appear to be social, agressive, and very large animals. Doubtless they would take a very dim view on anyone shooting one of their relatives and then going after that relative with a sharp object, and considering the fact that they are fscking HUGE, they certainly have the means to do something about it if they have to. Best to make friends =]

      --
      political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
    6. Re:Ape Poo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The thing they didn't meantion is that they were going to trick the ape into eating a mcdonands hamburger so it would shit blood for a week.

    7. Re:Ape Poo by AndroidCat · · Score: 1
      I wonder what scientists who study fecal samples call themselves (and what they're called by other people)? They'd hardly say Crap Scientist, after all. Corpologist? Is there a degree in that?

      And then there's the joke about "bear-bells" and the difference between brown and black bears.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    8. Re:Ape Poo by dnaboy · · Score: 1
      True, mtDNA is more abundant, but there are also serious limitations which make it A) very uninformative and B) extremely difficult to work with.

      A)As others mentioned, mtDNA is strictly (or at least very predominantly) maternally inherited. This is good in that it allows researchers to look back many generations, since there is no recombination (the reassortment portions of genomic DNA in creating sperm and egg cells.) The problem is most of us have very similar mitochondrial DNA. There's actually well over 1% of all people who have identical mitochondrial DNA. In forensics, it's corroborative, but certainly not the one piece of evidence to go to trial with... Same is true in the case of looking across species. While mitochondral DNA has been used to generate phylogenic trees (kinda like a family tree of evolution), the results are merely suggestive of an evolutionary path, and adding in or taking out a couple species can cause a largescale rearrangement in the tree.

      The other main reason mtDNA is a last resort for forensics is that it is very difficult to analyze. In addition to sequence differences, there can be insertions or deletions which will kill off DNA sequencing runs. To further convolute the problem, with nuclear DNA, good news is that if you have a substitution of one base with another, any individual will either have 100% one base, 100% the other or a 50-50 mix. With mtDNA, there is no reason for there to be a 50-50 mix if there is a mixture (known as heteroplasmy). The reason is that if mom has a mutation that spontaneously occurs, it doesn't neccessarily take over or instsantly come into some equilibrium over the next generations. To confuse things just a bit more, different tissues in the same animal can have different percentages of heteroplasmy, and it can also bounce around from generation to generation. This is a big problem, as it can make analyzing the data very subjective, and subtracts from the descriminating power. I don't mean to suggest that people were seeing what they wanted to see, but there is a very real possibility that different researchers would analyze the data differently. Again, potentially a problem for the evolutionary trees.

      Just my 2C

    9. Re:Ape Poo by Davak · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the input everybody...

      Davak

    10. Re:Ape Poo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > erm. I'll bite.

      Yech! Talk about junk food....;-)

    11. Re:Ape Poo by Aetrix · · Score: 1

      Usually they prepend "forensic" to whatever they're studying. So a person that studies ape poo would be a forensic primatologist.

      But when they get drunk (as they all regularly do in my neck of the woods) they tell people, "I look at shit all day."

      --

      "One touch of Darwin makes the whole world kin." George Bernard Shaw
    12. Re:Ape Poo by El · · Score: 1

      Add to this "chimps have been known to eat other chimps" and you have to ask, did the DNA come from the animal in question, or from it's dinner?

      --

      "Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

    13. Re:Ape Poo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Not like in the old days when they used to have a different name for each animal's droppings.

      Oh wait, a SCO's lawsuit...

    14. Re:Ape Poo by jez9999 · · Score: 0

      As far as sedating one, think about the challenge - these appear to be social, agressive, and very large animals

      Wow. That's a real challenge.

      Hide in the bushes, take 100 darts, and pick em all off. Wait till they're all asleep then take the blood sample.

    15. Re:Ape Poo by LuxFX · · Score: 1
      As far as sedating one, think about the challenge - these appear to be social, agressive, and very large animals. Doubtless they would take a very dim view on anyone shooting one of their relatives

      Not to mention, some mammalian groups have been known to abandon a member that has fallen behind and been 'contaminated' by researchers. After abandoning, these groups can become hostile towards the new outsider and will fight before letting the poor creature back in the group. I wouldn't doubt this is one of the considerations with sedating one of these animals.
      .
      --
      Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
    16. Re:Ape Poo by Jaeger- · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      i sit on my pc pissed when my cable modem goes out or i have an electricity surge/brownout, and it takes me 20mins to decide what to eat for lunch/dinner etc

      and all the slashdot articles are talking about SCO and Intellectual Property and the last episode of Futurama and filtering spam emails

      and then i run across a /. post talking about the people in the Congo who have "recently been slaughtering one another with pretty much anything at hand"

      reminds me of 28 days later

      --
      E V E R Y T H I N G I W R I T E I S F A L S E
    17. Re:Ape Poo by Daetrin · · Score: 1
      If they can obtain enough cells from the poo to extract the mitochondrial DNA, why can't they PCR the rest of the DNA as well?

      My impression from the article is that they're working on standard DNA sequencing as well. However the mitochondrial DNA is easier to work with so that got finished first.

      As to why mitochondrial DNA is easier to deal with, i don't have a clue. Unless it's just the simple fact that there's a lot less information in the mitochondrial DNA.

      --
      This Space Intentionally Left Blank
    18. Re:Ape Poo by tulare · · Score: 1

      Ya, don't miss, ok?

      --
      political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
  21. good news for anthropologists by PhysicsExpert · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hopefully this will help the scientists who are crossbreeding intelligent apes in order to try and create another advanced species and uderstand how humans have evolved. Although they've increased the average ape intelligence by nearly 40% and even bread some individuals who are able to play simple games such as snap, they are unable to develop more advanced behavious such as speach and the concept of friendship.

    .
    It might raise some interesting questions about the morality of creating these creatures if they become truely sentient though.

    --
    All that glitters has a high refractive index.
    1. Re:good news for anthropologists by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      Hopefully this will help the scientists who are crossbreeding intelligent apes in order to try and create another advanced species and uderstand how humans have evolved.

      I thought this research was scrapped some time ago when the best they could come up with was Darl MacBride.

    2. Re:good news for anthropologists by qwertyatwork · · Score: 3, Funny

      This can lead to only one thing...a race of super apes to enslave humanity. And I for one welcome our new ape overlords!

    3. Re: good news for anthropologists by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1


      > Although they've increased the average ape intelligence by nearly 40% and even bread some individuals who are able to play simple games such as snap, they are unable to develop more advanced behavious such as speach and the concept of friendship.

      I've never been able to master speach eather.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    4. Re: good news for anthropologists by redheaded_stepchild · · Score: 1

      I wish I had mod points right now!

      --
      Don't use the Troll mod just because you disagree with me.
    5. Re:good news for anthropologists by amRadioHed · · Score: 1
      It might raise some interesting questions about the morality of creating these creatures if they become truely sentient though.
      What do you mean if they become sentient. I'm sure they are already sentient, just like all other primates. In fact, many, if not most, mammals would probably be considered sentient.

      Primates communicate with themselves, can be taught games (as you mentioned) and some even have been taught limited sign language. Do they need to be able to speak english, post on slashdot, and drive an SUV before you will consider them sentient?
      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    6. Re:good news for anthropologists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hey, "snap" is not a simple game.. it took me years to figure it out!

  22. Richard Stallman is in Africa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Richard Stallman is in Africa, it might be him.

    Anybody else notice he looks like the Comic Book Guy?

  23. Science gets it wrong again by lateralus · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Those are not a new type of ape, they where SCO executives all along! P.S. No offense to the ape family.

    --
    If you outlaw the law, only criminals will have laws
  24. In Related News... by 1s44c · · Score: 3, Funny


    ...SCO have claimed the ape as their property and have started legal action against National Geographic for breaking the terms of their licence.

    1. Re:In Related News... by dusanv · · Score: 1

      No, no, you almost had it right. The ape is really Darl McBride on prowl for new potenetial licensees. And yes, National Geographic is definitely infringing for taking pictures of Darl's poo.

    2. Re:In Related News... by treval · · Score: 1

      No no no...

      The new scientific name is however Darlius McBridius but I assume this is pure coincidence.

      --
      Your attitude is infectious...
    3. Re:In Related News... by redheaded_stepchild · · Score: 1

      I believe you are confused; Darlius McBridius is really a subspecies of executus stupidii which is actually a member of the assholus majorus family. I don't think this relates to the story at hand, though.

      --
      Don't use the Troll mod just because you disagree with me.
  25. Re:Expert testimony by Jonathan · · Score: 1

    That wasn't Monroe -- that was Stephen Jay Gould playing himself!

  26. Great, a new species... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    "..just what I was looking for.. a species that was still not killed by my cold, dead hands.."
    "James! ..prepare the Rolls.. we are heading for afrika (again)."
    [walks off the stage] with his shiny new sub-machine gun. Loaded but not released, yet.

  27. Hybrid by Bananenrepublik · · Score: 1

    How about hybrid gorilla/human or chimp/human?

    Foto here.

  28. Re:Expert testimony by Eric+Ass+Raymond · · Score: 1
    that was Stephen Jay Gould playing himself!

    No it wasn't.

    You're thinking of the episode "Lisa the Skeptic" (ep. 908 5F05, original airdate: 11/23/97).

  29. Hot news by simgod · · Score: 5, Funny

    George Bush has been switched with an ape by a mistake during his recent trip to Africa explained the State Department today. They have all been wondering for some time why the president shaves every six hours.
    The "real president" was discovered by a CIA expedition which was able to locate the president by using an ultra-sensiteve sound recorder to match the sounds in the jungle with his distinctive sounds "terrorist, daddy, oil"

  30. Re:How do they know? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Of course they hoot when the moon rises and sets - dont YOU?? I know I do!! ALL of us great apes hoot at any given stimulus - I even hoot when the ads start during will and grace!

  31. Re:How do they know? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hell, just read the fucking blurb.

    It seems like the latest trend is:

    1) Read the Headline
    2) Speculate wildly about what the story could possibly be
    3) Profit?

  32. Ape Video by spudchucker · · Score: 4, Funny
    1. Re:Ape Video by G-funk · · Score: 1

      "Hold it bob, we can see your watch"

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money!
  33. ... that you didn't bother to read the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    I mean, ghod, at least have *some* clue of what the story is even about before you bless us with your interpretation.

    1. Re:... that you didn't bother to read the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even if he hadn't read the story I thought an interesting point was raised. For example, how many complete Neanderthal men skeletons have been found? Not many, yet we can only assume there must of been thousands in existence.

    2. Re:... that you didn't bother to read the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Had he read the article back when his brain was alive, he'd have made thousands of coherent and relevent points.

  34. Not impressed by dnoyeb · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Don't show me some new ape, then claim you had trouble with your camera. Those pictures are horrible. What are those from a satellite???

    Sorry, I am just not buying it. This is 2004 and that lame ass picture that I can't tell WTH its showing is your best?

    go away.

    1. Re:Not impressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Yes, that was a bad picture. This one, however, is not.

    2. Re:Not impressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You obviously have no idea what kind of conditions they have to face in the rain forest. Notice it is called a RAIN forest. A very very very humid place. Not exactly the best place for high quality expensive photo equipment that has a very good chance of not returning to the lab. I'm really getting sick of you schmucks on here looking down on things you have no bloody idea about.

    3. Re:Not impressed by mesach · · Score: 1

      Um, yeah, hey. Ah, This is 2003, in fact pretty much the middle of 2003, not anywhere near the end like november or december when most people start categorizing it with the next year.

      --
      moo.
    4. Re:Not impressed by andrewski · · Score: 0

      Yes, it too is a bad picture. It's tiny, highly compressed, and there is considreable loss of values in the lower zones - zones 0-2 are effectively the same. I would expect National Geographic to acquire better photos through time. They'll probably show up n print, though, and not as huge .tiff files on the NGS site.

  35. I know, I know, I know. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Someone's going to talk about how this may be the "missing link," right? What if there IS no missing link between apes and humans. You DO think there is more to life than simple adaptation...

    1. Re:I know, I know, I know. by Queuetue · · Score: 0

      If we don't find a missing link, then all that means is that no missing link has been found yet. In other words, no concrete proof exists, although most people who have analyzed the data expect there to be one. Unfortunately, the evidence may have been destroyed.

      No, it's probably not an indication whatever you were alluding to, be it aliens, a diety, or a glitch in the matrix.

  36. scary ape! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if it eats meat it's probably dangerous.
    maybe it aet all the scientiscts that discovered it before ...

    and: what a useless picture ... "following it around for several hours" and still no decent picture c|:-(

  37. More American jobs lost by hackrobat · · Score: 2, Funny

    Shucks, more of these monkeys means more American jobs lost to outsourcing. Heck, even Indian coders can barely compete with this new programming paradigm (I looked up the dictionary before posting).

  38. Re:The Missing Link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WTF???

  39. Re:The Missing Link by xyvimur · · Score: 0

    Maybe? There are debates that the apes SIV jumped to human in several ways. Some say that hunters who eat apes (and it was a bloody work) catched it and spread into the world. Other say that people who implated apes `balls' spread it. Maybe the examination of the `new' specie will tell us something. But I don't have much hopes...

  40. where's the ape? by Luke+Skyewalker · · Score: 1

    i just see a fatass in that pic.

  41. Bigfoot anyone? by nilstar · · Score: 1

    This reminds me of the Bigfoot hoax here in Canada. The guy who started it all, finally on his Deathbed told everyone how he started it. When will people realize, that a bunch of blurry pictures don't constitute proof. I'll wait for DNA tests on a live creature.

    --
    ===> An eye for an eye makes everyone blind - MG
    1. Re:Bigfoot anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too bad cause there is A LOT of scientific evidence of BigFoot and researchers are finding more.

      - Hair has been analyzed and come back as "unknown ape species"
      - Extremely twisted trees/branches are physical evidence.
      - Lots of foot prints have been found, not just from a lame hoaxer.
      - The old Patterson video is the only known video of a real bigfoot.
      - There are researchers in Oregon or Washington (I forget) who are attempting to study two BigFoot familes: Male+Female+Offspring.
      - IIRC, there are an estimated 1000 BigFoot in North America.
      - They are guessing they are related to the species Gigantithicus (sp?) which was thought to be extinct. AKA Mountain Ape.
      - They are VERY ellusive. Not aggressive toward humans unless they are attacked.

      Here is one story from a ranger:

      An outdoorsman told a ranger that he knew where Bigfoot was and he was going to go kill him and bring him back and put an end to the controversey. The ranger didn't hear back from him so they decided to go look for him. They found him pummelled to death and his gun barrel bent backwards.

      To me this wasn't a violent death considering they are known to be able to lift 500 pound boulders usually for marking territory.

      Found a quick link for everyone though I haven't read it yet: http://www.oregonbigfoot.com/index.php

      Our media has their best interest in mind (ratings) not ours.

    2. Re:Bigfoot anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's Gigantopithecus Blacki. You could have at least looked that up. Also, the probability that 1000 great apes or ape-bears or whatever they are supposed to be could go undiscovered for such a long time is highly improbable, and with every passing year it becomes more improbable still. Whether 1000 individuals spread over a fairly large area is a viable breeding population is also open to question.

      If these animals were real I suspect that you would have seen video and photo footage of them up close rummaging through trash cans just like Grizzly Bears and Polar Bears are known to do. An animal of that size would make a great deal of noise and might even be visible from low flying planes.

      Of course these bipedal giant chimps are the closest we have seen to a bigfoot/yeti. Any other bipedal primate would be a very big deal.

  42. Re:_Clever_ tricks? or Expendible trackers? by IDigUNIX · · Score: 5, Funny

    Take note how it says "One of my trackers made the sound". It makes no mention of how far away the researcher was. The natural scientific explaination is that the trackers are expendible and easily replaced.

    This hypothisis was demonstrated beatifully in the old "Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom" shows when I was a kid. The host would always be standing well out of range of the king cobra while saying "Now watch as my assistant charms the snake using body motions".

  43. Another picture by User1234 · · Score: 1

    Thanks to google here is another picture.
    http://www.animationalley.com/images/ani mationart/ hannabarbera/grapeape.jpg

  44. I thought about Cichton's book, Congo. by gacp · · Score: 3, Informative
    Hey! A giant ape. And in the same region. Crichton based ``Congo'' on the kakundakari, supposedly a giant ape of the Congo that people claim to have been seing for ages. Before you say no, remember that science had `proved' that gorillas did not exist, and denied the reality of the giant panda for ca. 60 years. Maybe there is something to this kakundakari. Who knows?

    --
    ``L'imagination au povoir.''
    1. Re:I thought about Cichton's book, Congo. by Uart · · Score: 1

      Whew! and I thought I was weird for having that one come to mind. Those were some bad-ass apes.

      The major difference would be, of course, that the kakundakari apes were extremely violent and territorial, whereas, we can't necessarily say the same thing about the mystery apes.

      --

      Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
    2. Re:I thought about Cichton's book, Congo. by saudadelinux · · Score: 1

      I was thinking the same thing ... if they find anyone with their head pancaked, it's time to go ;-)

      --
      I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
  45. If it's an 800lb gorilla by psyconaut · · Score: 1

    ...we need to ask the question has Bush been to Africa recently? ;-)

    -psy

  46. Compare this to the "mystery ape" in Nortwest USA by Myddrin · · Score: 1

    Compare this to the search for "bigfoot".

    Here we have skulls, pictures, etc of this elusive animal. All shortly (relatively) after the start of the search.

    It's interesting to see real scientists at work here,rather than the less than skeptical cryptologist who have nothing more than some faked/mis-identified footprints and a couple eyewitness reports. Even though they have been searching for what, 50 years?

    Be interesting how many documentaries on this new species get put on the Discovery Channel. Sadly, I think that the bigfoot documentaries will get alot more air time.

    Sigh....

    --
    Myddrin
  47. Seriously, Folks by suwain_2 · · Score: 1

    While you all joke about how it's CowboyNeal, SCO, or RMS, I seem to be the only one to know its true identity. It's clearly Bigfoot.

    --
    ________________________________________________
    suwain_2 :: quality slashdot p
  48. Someone had to say it by weeboo0104 · · Score: 1

    I'm a human with excessive body hair you insensitive clod!

    --
    It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
  49. A loaf of bread, a twig of ants & thou... by xigxag · · Score: 2, Informative

    I was a bit curious as to the reason why there seems to be no speculation about this "giant ape" being a chimpanzee/human hybrid. Of course, humans have a different number of chromosomes than the other great apes, but that in itself doesn't seem to be an absolute bar to cross-breeding. The answer seems to be in this article, where it basically says that human DNA has a number of chromosomal "inversions" with respect to chimpanzee DNA, and those inversions would lead to cross-breeding sterility.

    --
    There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
    1. Re:A loaf of bread, a twig of ants & thou... by ruiner13 · · Score: 1
      'I was a bit curious as to the reason why there seems to be no speculation about this "giant ape" being a chimpanzee/human hybrid. Of course, humans have a different number of chromosomes than the other great apes, but that in itself doesn't seem to be an absolute bar to cross-breeding. The answer seems to be in this article [prometheussociety.org], where it basically says that human DNA has a number of chromosomal "inversions" with respect to chimpanzee DNA, and those inversions would lead to cross-breeding sterility."

      Are you ACTUALLY suggesting that a chimp was raped by a man? Wouldn't a human baby be too large or a chimp to birth (all the chimp babies i've seen in film have been especially tiny). Or are you suggesting that a chimp raped a human? I bet the human wouldn't want to report that out of embarrassment, but would she birth it? I think you're going out on a limb here. And the limb doesn't have any chimps or humans on it.

      --

      today is spelling optional day.

    2. Re:A loaf of bread, a twig of ants & thou... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Interesting

      those inversions would lead to cross-breeding sterility.

      It seems sometimes nature has a way of overcoming scientific certainties.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    3. Re:A loaf of bread, a twig of ants & thou... by xigxag · · Score: 1
      Are you ACTUALLY suggesting that a chimp was raped by a man?

      Not suggesting, but wondering if it could be the case. Certainly one would have to be foolish to imagine that in the history of our two species a human and a chimp have never engaged in intercourse. Although it seems highly likely that any resulting conception would be unviable, imagine that there was a miracle birth which eventually led to this group of "giant apes" that's been discovered. Perhaps it would turn out they were 3/4 chimp and 1/4 human, for example. Wouldn't that cause a major ethical storm? Would they be entitled to full human rights? Would they be experimented upon against their will? It's an interesting issue, albeit one fairly well explored in different form by Charleton Heston, Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter.

      --
      There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
    4. Re:A loaf of bread, a twig of ants & thou... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      >Are you ACTUALLY suggesting that a chimp was
      >raped by a man?

      Not suggesting, but wondering if it could be the case.


      I remember reading a while back that this may be how SIV jumped species to humans and became HIV. A quick Google search didn't find any references - only articles referring to 'being exposed to chimpanzee blood during rituals'.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  50. Probably a large chimpanzee by heironymouscoward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I presume the term "new species" means one that homo sapiens sapiens has not yet discovered and put on the menu. Theorising this to be a "hybrid" is simply fantastic speculation: Occam's razor suggests that it's a relative of the species already known, and given the description of the flat face, it would be a large chimpanzee.
    If this is not a hoax, it will probably be found that local people know of the species and consider them to be "men of the forest" or whatever. Second prediction: the unfortunate animals will rapidly end up on the "bushmeat" menu of those freaks who enjoy eating the flesh of near-human species such as gorillas and chimpanzees. Third prediction: the study of the giant chimp (if that it is) will be limited to skulls, thighbones, and the occasional skin, with the wild population extinct and maybe one or two sad individuals "liberated" and stuck in zoo prisons.
    Central Africa has two species of gorilla and three subspecies of chimpanzee, and large chimpanzee individuals are not unknown. So it's most likely this is another chimpanzee subspecies that has adopted gorilla habits (such as sleeping on the ground) simply because it's too large to nest in trees.
    We should be treating these near-human cousin species with respect, but it seems that chimpanzees and gorillas are of most interest to humans because they are edible.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une signature
    1. Re:Probably a large chimpanzee by lawpoop · · Score: 1
      ...those freaks who enjoy eating the flesh of near-human species such as gorillas and chimpanzees.

      I think 'not starving to death' is rather their motivation for eating chimpanzees and gorillas. Bushmeat is whatever you can get your hands on.

      Cows, chickens, etc. are 'near-human' compared to insects and amoebas.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    2. Re:Probably a large chimpanzee by GeoGreg · · Score: 1

      To add to what another poster said on this, I recently saw a PBS show (Scientific American Frontiers, I think) that talked about bushmeat. The major consumers are loggers and city-dwellers. The hunters are not the local residents, but people who come in over recently opened logging roads. The city-dwellers who consume bushmeat are those who can afford it. Farm-raised meat is actually less expensive, but bushmeat is fashionable.

  51. Wrong Ape movie by AndroidCat · · Score: 3, Funny
    And the mystery apes hoot when the moon rises and sets, something chimps don't do for fear of attracting lions and hyenas, Williams said.
    Obviously these are apes like Moon-Watcher, but were in the john or something when the black monolith taught everyone to throw bones.
    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    1. Re:Wrong Ape movie by xyvimur · · Score: 1

      The same thought I had -- about Arthur Clarke's 2001.
      About `2001' check this

    2. Re:Wrong Ape movie by AndroidCat · · Score: 1
      Ah, then you've read the book rather just seen the movie. I forget if the movie does anything with this. Pretty hard to do without a big sign pointing to him -- "This is Moon-Watcher, he watches the Moon. We're hinting at some latent striving here folks!"

      I'd love to know why they hoot at Moon-rise and set. But then, I've never needed an excuse...

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    3. Re:Wrong Ape movie by xyvimur · · Score: 1

      ``I forget if the movie does anything with this.''
      As far as I remember the movie has nothing about it. But I may be wrong - seen it few years ago.
      Still the movie beginning is pretty impressive. I think this is due to music (and the fact that I've seen it for the first time when I was 7 - not much I undestood then, but I remembered it and watched later)

  52. Re:Stop feeding the trolls! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He doesn't bow to the "software should be free as in fredom" mentality. So what? Just because you don't agree doesn't make the guy a troll.

  53. Monkeying around... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A gorilla and a chimp getting it on together would be real monkey business!

  54. Old News. by The+Cydonian · · Score: 1
    This was all covered in an excellent treatise that was released in the '70's itself. I understand it has something to do with an ancient extinct civilisation which carefully mated gorillas who later evolved their own language.

    Haven't seen it, but I heard that there was also a documentary made on the subject.

    1. Re:Old News. by 1u3hr · · Score: 1
      This was all covered in an excellent treatise that was released in the '70's itself. I understand it has something to do with an ancient extinct civilisation which carefully mated gorillas who later evolved their own language

      Obviously plagiarised from this work of 1916, filmed in 1929, (and remade in 1998).

  55. Well ahl be by finallyHasANickname · · Score: 1
    It has been hypothesized that the ape might be a new species, a subspecies, or perhaps a hybrid between two other species.

    By the choice of words, obviously they were too conceited to admit the truth: They had discovered the famous Monkey's Uncle.

  56. What species would they be a hybrid between? by donscarletti · · Score: 1
    or perhaps a hybrid between two other species

    If one of those species happens to be homo sapien and the other species happens to not be, I think that will be the grossest transpiration in the research of evolution that will ever take place.

    I mean DAMN! That would be so not cool on so many levels!

    --
    When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
  57. Oliver by mrbuttle · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Perhaps an example of one living in captivity for the last 40 years is Oliver ( see here or here. From the first link:

    Oliver surfaced in the early 1970s, when he was acquired as a baby by trainers Frank and Janet Burger whose dog, chimp, pony and pig acts were once regularly featured on the Ed Sullivan Show, at Radio City Music Hall, and once even by dancer Gene Kelly. "He came in from Africa with three other chimps that one of Frank's brothers had sent over from the Congo. But this one we could never use. He was odd and the other chimps would have nothing to do with him,'' recalled Janet Burger, 69. But if Oliver was strange in appearance, and was shunned by other chimps, his intelligence and personality were also quite different from the other apes in the Burgers' entourage. "You could send him on chores. He would take the wheelbarrow and empty the hay and straw from the stalls. And when it was time to feed the dogs, he would get the pans, and mix the dog food for me. I'd get it ready and he'd mix it,'' she said. As he grew older, Oliver also acquired habits normally enjoyed only by humans, including a cup of coffee and a nightcap. "This guy, Oliver, he enjoyed sitting down at night and having a drink, and watching television. He'd mix his own. He'd pour a shot of whiskey and put some Seven-Up in there, stir it and drink it,'' she recalled.

    1. Re:Oliver by zephc · · Score: 1

      I was just about to bring this up.

      He was dubbed as a so-called 'Humanzee", and I have to confess, when I saw a special on him on the Discovery Channel, it kinda freaked me out.

      The article doesn't mention any link between the two, but it would be interesting to see Oliver's skull when he finally keels over.

      --
      "I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
    2. Re:Oliver by 0111+1110 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Wow, that is an interesting link. This is all kind of cool and creepy. I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned De Loys Ape. A creepy and genuinely old photo, first published in a newspaper in the late 1920s I think.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    3. Re:Oliver by AndroidCat · · Score: 1
      Drinks and watches TV? Sounds human to me!

      They should try him with sign language like Koko.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    4. Re:Oliver by drinkypoo · · Score: 1
      You have to wonder in cases like this how much is evolution, how much is upbringing, and how much is simply the differences from one creature to another brought on by environment; chemicals, position, pressure, how the head is gripped when you yank a baby out of its mama, et cetera. It's been said that Oliver had a smaller head than usual, so perhaps that's due to some sort of mutation which can be linked to a brain which leads itself to retention of new concepts.

      I am certainly not even familiar with the fields involved in behavioral science, but I find it quite interesting in general. I personally have a rabbit which acts like a cat or dog (minus barking.) He behaves very much like a dog. My girlfriend and I have always simply treated him like a pet... But, I guess, basically like a little dog. Now, when we go on car rides, he will sit on the seat between us. He's very good about being held or petted, and you can generally take him outside and not have to worry about him running off too far, though I suspect that will change as he gets older.

      What I'm getting at is, I doubt he in particular is physically any different from the majority of rabbits, but he certainly acts quite different. If he were some kind of super smart rabbit, I can only imagine how different he would be. :)

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Oliver by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I tracked down an article on this:
      "Technical note: Chromosomal and mtDNA analysis of Oliver" John J et. al. American Journal of Physical Anthropology Volume 105, Issue 3, 1998. Pages: 395-403

      Sad to say, its almost certainly a chimp (really 48 chromosomes, cytogenetics) . Apparently, most of Oliver's teeth were removed at a young age, which altered his facial features, and his bipedalism was most likely conditioned as well. Still smart though...

  58. Mangani? by Confessed+Geek · · Score: 1


    Big, rare, non gorrilla in africa? Looks like Burroughs was right after all...

    (10 points if you get the reference)

    1. Re:Mangani? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kreegah! Kagoda!

      Wonder how many here actually read ERB.

      Durn... Well, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen's bringing back characters from authors the of same era.

      It's Quatermain, not Quartermain, dammit!

      -www.object404.com

  59. lets hope by way2trivial · · Score: 1
    they weren't trained to crush skulls
    in order to protect a IIb diamond mine


    http://home.nyu.edu/~kan209/congo.html

    --
    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
  60. Oh crap! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They found my roommate's family.

  61. Mediumfoot by gelfling · · Score: 2, Funny

    Clearly it's the mythical Mediumfoot known to tramp around the forests of Africa

  62. It's not a new ape.. by stubear · · Score: 1

    That's just RMS on his tour of Africa, pushing the tao of GNU to opressed apes everywhere, forced to use a Windows powered black obelisk instead of the GNU/Linux GNU/Obelisk.

  63. does he run sco? by havaloc · · Score: 1

    Is this the same 'great' ape who's trying to extort linux users?

  64. Re:Stop feeding the trolls! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Posts should be moderated, not people.

  65. Was it wearing.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Novell T-Shirt?

  66. Hybrid Between Chimp and Ape? by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: 1

    Well instead of tracking this thing - We have the Chimps and apes - Try to cross breed em.

    Ever hear of the Mule? It's a crossbreed of a horse and a donkey.

    I think it would be a valid experiment to actually SEE if this was possible.

    For the previous poster that mentioned it might be a chimp/human crossbreed..
    Ewwwww.

    --
    _ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
  67. Mystery Solved! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "It has been hypothesized that the ape might be a new species, a subspecies, or perhaps a hybrid between two other species."

    Maybe Hillary Rosen and Jack Valenti?

  68. Steve Ballmer by GQuon · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just what I was thinking.
    Dance monkey boy!

    --
    Irene KHAAAAAAN!
  69. blaise pascal said by guest12 · · Score: 1

    the great apes know how to speak but remain silent, else they'll be put to work.

    or something like that.

  70. why the shock and surprise? by Wan2Be · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've often wondered why people seem to think that since we've come into being, everything else should remain the same. Global warming? Hmmm, let's look at earth history and see that ice ages and global warmings happen with or without us. Changes in some animals? Hmmm, let's look at the paleontological record and see that species come and go and change - with or without us. Air pollution? Hmmm, Mt. St. Helen put more garbage in the air than the entire history of mankind. The earth doesn't care, people. It continues on - with us or without us.

  71. its not a hybrid by linuxislandsucks · · Score: 0

    Cnn.com flunked basic biology..

    hybrids only apply to plants not mamals!

    if the eye witness reports of it wlaking upright in human stnace are ture not bow legged stance as in chimps and apes its not an ap but may be a lonmg los homid..

    Apes are vegtarian..chimps and homids and humans are not..

    --
    Don't Tread on OpenSource
    1. Re:its not a hybrid by tunesmith · · Score: 2, Funny

      jesus christ. all right, I'm not one to flame spelling, but you are the laziest typer I've ever seen.

      --
      skkkoooonnnggggkkk ptui
  72. Re:_Clever_ tricks? or Expendible trackers? by bj8rn · · Score: 2, Funny

    The trackers use their great knowledge of animal sounds to secretly negotiate with those animals into letting them (ie trackers) go for the price of a few (expendable) researchers.

    --
    Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
  73. Hybrid? by sin(theta) · · Score: 3, Funny

    Alright, who's been having sex with gorillas?

    1. Re:Hybrid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The real reason of how AIDS got transfered from other primates to humans...

    2. Re:Hybrid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So is that comment racist, homophobic, or both?

    3. Re:Hybrid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  74. Nope, It's Not A Spammer... by Ken+McE · · Score: 1

    It has repeatedly been spotted walking upright...

  75. Here's the real one: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, that is a cousin of the great ape. Here's the real one.

  76. Re:Compare this to the "mystery ape" in Nortwest U by DCheesi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If it was anyone other than ape researchers, they would have been laughed at. Given the fact that they have access to real apes, I don't think their evidence is any more solid than the various bigfoot/yeti/etc. sightings around the world. Eg. instead of a guy in an ape suit, you take a picture of a gorilla from a weird angle; same with the skulls, dung, etc.

    On the other hand, if they do find something real, it will be used to support the claims of crackpot bigfoot-hunters everywhere. If they could miss an entire species in africa for so long, why not elsewhere? Either way, get ready for ape-hoax field day in the near future...

  77. Other Clever Ideas they had... by Dareth · · Score: 2, Funny

    "She'll camouflage her skin because the animals have not seen light-skinned humans."

    Oh come now, if they have never seen white people, they won't know that, "they come to take your land".

    --

    I only look human.
    My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
  78. One good picture here by m4g02 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The picture in the article sucks, you can find one that looks much better in National Geographic website.

    --
    Sigs are for morons... Wait a minute...
    1. Re:One good picture here by m4g02 · · Score: 1

      I forgot to tell, you can find a link there to many pictures.

      --
      Sigs are for morons... Wait a minute...
  79. Nah ... by zonix · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nah, that's just a Ferengi in the gorilla suit!

    z
    --
    What would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
    1. Re:Nah ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OMG! I just laughed a fry out my nose!

  80. Another candidate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Am I the only one who sees this as a possiblity as another candidate for California Governor?

  81. Remember... by TerryAtWork · · Score: 1

    Tarzan was a good man and a great ape.

    --
    It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
  82. Don't know what it is by smallfeet · · Score: 2, Funny

    but I hear it is running for governor of California.

  83. Here is a great picture of the ape by xyloplax · · Score: 0

    Here!. Oh wait, you said GREAT ape.

    --
    -- "You can lead a yak to water, but you can't teach an old dog to make a silk purse out of a pig in a poke" - Opus
  84. Punchline of a very old joke.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Okay, Guisseppi, I do the gorrilla. Under two conditions. One, no-one'd a better know, and the children? They got-ta be raised a Catholic. (read in a stereotype Italian immigrant accent for better effect).

  85. Re:_Clever_ tricks? or Expendible trackers? by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Funny
    I thought his assistant always just poked the animal with a stick until it did something interesting.

    (There is no truth to the rumour that Marlin Perkins was found poked to death.)

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  86. Just another .... by p0rnking · · Score: 1

    Bigfoot, Lochness Monster ...?
    Seems like everyone wants their own fantasy creatures now ...

  87. apes by joebeone · · Score: 1

    are they sure they know where Gene Simmons is? There's a few other upright-walking apes that I would want to locate before claiming that we see a new species!

  88. And now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The apes are suing back! About then everything went black, oh wasn't that a party?

  89. New Great Ape Discovered? by isorox · · Score: 1

    From the article

    A new Great Ape has been discovered sitting behind a desk at 1600 Pensylvania Ave. Scientists are stil trying to determine if it has intellegence

    1. Re:New Great Ape Discovered? by bj8rn · · Score: 1

      Recent events have shown that its intelligence is not functioning properly. The ape doesn't seem to mind, though.

      --
      Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
  90. President Bush by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wasn't he just in Africa around the time of the sightings?

    1. Re:President Bush by margal · · Score: 1

      No, wrong brother. That's Jeb, your future president. Must have been a leaked family photo...

  91. Aside from the scientific reasons... by juhaz · · Score: 1

    The fact that it hasn't been done probably indicates that it can't be done.

    Humans have enough mad scientists and Dr. Mengeles that SOMEONE has damn certainly tried it, and we probably would've heard (and seen) if it had succeeded.

  92. "great" Ape? by El · · Score: 1

    More like "not-so-hot" ape...

    --

    "Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

    1. Re:"great" Ape? by uncoveror · · Score: 1

      This so-called new great ape is not new at all. He has been called Bigfoot, and Sasquatch. Read more.

      --
      The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
  93. Sweet Sweet Monkey Love by OrangeStoli · · Score: 1

    Sweet Sweet Monkey Love

  94. I've seen them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I saw dozens of these great apes on the South Side of Chicago last night! Somebody better send a zoologist down there right away to check it out!

  95. Grape Ape? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  96. Congo? by nvrrobx · · Score: 1

    Has anyone read Congo by Michael Crichton?

    This sounds strangely similiar...

  97. Further Reading by nicklott · · Score: 2, Informative

    Also try "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee" by Jared Diamond. 's very good.

  98. Re:_Clever_ tricks? ??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    1. Find new ape species
    2. Play stupid tricks
    3. ???
    4. Get Darwin award

  99. Larry? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey! That's my cousin Larry!

  100. Not an ape by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pictures of the animal are rare, but it seems slightly taller than most gorillas, with a flatter face.

    Has Woz been to Africa lately?

  101. My theory by Edmund · · Score: 1

    or perhaps a hybrid between two other species.

    I suspect that it was the result of a man having a little too much to drink (or perhaps smoke) and stumbling into the jungle...

  102. Copulation Between Human Being and Chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The newly discovered ape is likely the product of copulation between a human being and a chimp. The genes of the two species are closer to each other than the genes of a horse and a donkey.

    1. Re:Copulation Between Human Being and Chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The newly discovered ape is likely the product of copulation between a human being and a chimp.

      Hmm, and Bill Clinton visited Africa four years ago.

    2. Re:Copulation Between Human Being and Chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So some crazy evolutionist freak screwwed a chimp to create evidence that evolution is true.

    3. Re:Copulation Between Human Being and Chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmmm... I think you have the wrong president for a missing man-ape link.

  103. Skull looks more like a primitive hominid. by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

    The skull of this new "ape" looks more like that of a primitive hominid, like the pithecines. I don't think this thing will turn out to be a chimp. It's no gorilla either, I didn't see a sagittal crest. It's bipedal, larger than 6 ft, and has a flat face. Might be a descendant of one of the robust pithecines or Gigantopithecus.

    I'm personally of the belief that the chimps and gorillas are descendants of the Australopithecines who returned to the forest. Makes perfect sense, one larger and one smaller australopithecine become one larger, one smaller great ape.

  104. How long until we start hunting it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Very soon hords of scaring people will be chasing it across Africa until the species is rotten out. Then we will start complaining how cruel life is and everybody will go back to business and not care about it.

  105. What is Pres Bush doing there? by MadJo · · Score: 1

    I thought that Pres. Bush didn't have a meeting in Africa at this time...

  106. Polite people say African-Americans! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

  107. Just as long as they don't find Gorilla City. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That Grodd's a mean bastard.

  108. i thought by Madcapjack · · Score: 1

    You're completely right. The species concept, as far as I am concerned, is at best an approximation of what actually is going on. sometime's it works, sometime's it doesn't. any massively complex system such as this isn't going to be captured perfectly by so simple a concept. in any case, it doesn't matter.

  109. Scary Indeed. by MacOS_Rules · · Score: 1

    Confirmed! I have seen this new species of ape. It was screaming "developers" as it ran through the foliage. :}

    --
    If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business. -Thackeray, William
  110. Like a Dog? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think what you are describing there is not 'dog-like' behaviour but 'pet-like' behaviour - as exhibited by dogs. This is a rabbit which is habituated to handling and people.

    What do you expect it to do when you take it on car rides?

    Does it fetch sticks, wag its tail when excited? Does it sit by the front door when its primary feeder is due home? Does it smell other dog's bottoms?

    No?

  111. Covering all your bases? by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 3, Funny

    It has been hypothesized that the ape might be a new species, a subspecies, or perhaps a hybrid between two other species.

    About the only thing left out of that list is 'existing species'... if you add that then you can just rewrite:

    It has been hypothesized that the ape might be an ape :)

  112. I call troll! MOD PARENT DOWN! by Daetrin · · Score: 2, Informative
    This guy is a troll

    Got any evidence to back up your claim?

    I've never heard of any such studies, and a few quick google searches turn nothing up. Furthermore, a lot of the points mentioned sound very suspicious.

    They've improved intelligence by nearly 40%? Measured how? We can't even come uip with a good system for measuring human intelligence, yet you expect me to believe they can assign a precise numerical figure to how much smarter these supposed apes are?

    they are unable to develop more advanced behavious such as speach and the concept of friendship.

    Give me a break. First of all, apes are already capable of developing the advanced behavior of speach. Or rather, the advanced behavior of language. I'm sure you've heard of apes that have been tought sign language? They're certainly not very good at it, but they are clearly communicating in a very simple way using language.

    The reason they haven't developed verbal speach is because they don't have the physical ability to produce the same sounds tha humans can. Breeding apes for intelligence won't ever produce a specimen that is able to speak english or any other human lanaguge, nor would any scientist ever expect it to.

    As for friendship, there are pleanty of cases of animals showing friendship for others. Both in primates and in other species. Perhaps you've heard of cats and dogs? About 60 seconds of websearching was enough to find evidence that friendship among normal priamtes has already documented and researched by anthropologists.

    And last and least, take a look at this person's posting history.

    --
    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
    1. Re:I call troll! MOD PARENT DOWN! by Bertie · · Score: 1

      The reason they haven't developed verbal speach is because they don't have the physical ability to produce the same sounds tha humans can. Breeding apes for intelligence won't ever produce a specimen that is able to speak english or any other human lanaguge, nor would any scientist ever expect it to.

      Quite. After a few months of life, the larynx of a human infant descends from just behind the back of the mouth to further down the throat. This change has its ups and downs. One disadvantage is that baby can't breathe and eat at the same time any more, but then again, because their rate of growth is slowing somewhat, the need to do so is less pressing. Other things are becoming more important, so babies move from eatin', shittin' and sleepin' towards trying to take in ever-increasing amounts of information about their environment.

      The advantage of the descending larynx is that junior is able to speak as a result of increased flexibility of movement of the various parts of the vocal tract and an enlarged pharynx. That right-angled vocal tract of ours is unique to humans, and that's why we're the only animals who can form sounds in the way we do. No amount of breeding's going to produce this ability in other apesn no matter how intelligent they become (well, not quite no amount, but it'd need a hell of a lot of trial-and-error to get near it...).

  113. OT: What's with that page? by Drakonian · · Score: 1

    I don't wanna sound like I'm overcompensating or anything, but wow. I don't believe there was a single scientific principle used in the creation of that page you linked to. It sounded like some 15 yr old using circular reasoning to get to the point he's trying to prove.

    --
    Random is the New Order.
  114. Amy Like by nzilla · · Score: 1

    Oh no! They got into the blue diamond-powered lasers! Run!

    --
    Ignorance is bliss and I'm suicidal.
  115. NOW we know why.... by judowillreturns · · Score: 1

    NOW we know why CowboyNeal has been so busy!

  116. Error in write-up by Daetrin · · Score: 1
    Pictures of the animal are rare, but it seems slightly taller than most gorillas, with a flatter face.

    What the article actually says is "the animal has feet that are about two inches bigger than the average gorilla and is more flat-faced than other apes."

    Just because it's feet are bigger doesn't mean that it's taller. That's making unwaranted assumptions about it's body structure.

    Later on in the article there is the report that "It was walking bipedally (upright) and was taller than her, and she's six feet tall." However humans have a tendency to unconsciously misjudge and/or exagerate size of unfamiliar things. Large primates are big, they weigh a lot, tend to be wider than humans, and are covered in fur. All of which problably makes humans judge them as bigger than they are. Gorillas can be up to six feet tall too, and if she saw one of those walking past while she was sitting down in a car she'd probably describe it as taller than herself as well.

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    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  117. Cryptozoologists are going to go apeshit by Daetrin · · Score: 1
    It's got feet larger than a gorilla, and according to one eyewitness report it's taller than an average person.

    Half of them will claim it's bigfoot, the other half will claim that if it took us this long to find a new giant ape that's been around for who knows how long, how can mainsteam scientists say that the stuff they're looking for is impossible/extremely unlikely.

    This of course ignores the fact that finding a new ape in Africa isn't all that unusual. If they'd found it in Washington State then they'd have a bit better claim. And even finding a new ape species in north america is far more likely that finding a surviving population of dinosaurs or whatever the latest cryptozoologist thing is.

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    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  118. Homer! by Drakker · · Score: 3, Funny

    First thing that got into my head was Homer running covered with mud. Homer Simpsons is the great Ape!

    It was in one of the first episodes, everyone must have seen it at least once. ;)

  119. NOW I understand.... by dosh8er · · Score: 1

    ... this must be the offspring of the human and primate couple that brought AIDS into the human gene pool!!! It all makes sense now!

    --
    This useless space for sale, inquire at front desk.
  120. "In SCO related news..." by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 1

    Okay, whether or not this was modded up as funny, it's getting too common to just randomly reference SCO in articles for mod points. You have to admit that.

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
  121. Ad: switch... by radoni · · Score: 1

    ...or the monkey gets it!

    --
    SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
  122. Pervert + Female Gorilla = new breed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe some pervert had sex with a gorilla... who knows...

    1. Re:Pervert + Female Gorilla = new breed by aimew · · Score: 1

      It would explain some rumors about Idi Amin... So will the probate lawyers be looking for these 'apes' when 'Dada' bites the bullet? There could be quite an estate, if they can teach them not to eat the lawyers first (but why do that?)

      --
      Keeper of the terrible karma ---
  123. Re:is it just me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The parent probably has some agenda against either BYU or Mormons. In my personal experience as a exec for a security company, some of the most trustworthy, upstanding people Ive had the privilege to work with were Mormons. I dont agree with their religious outlook, but I find it ludicrous when people like to basically call them devils. If what they teach is soo bad, wheres the evidence of such dogma in their actions? I personally would like to see more Mormon influece in the world. When my daughter starts to date ... I would feel much more comfortable if she was with a Mormon boy. Bleh ... the parent needs to resolve his hate issues.

  124. Is he looking for work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Primate Programming Inc. might be hiring:

    http://www.newtechusa.com/ppi/pressroom.asp

  125. BIG FOOT?!??! by skraps · · Score: 1

    Er.. Henry?!?, I mean Sasquatch?!?

    --
    Karma: -2147483648 (Mostly affected by integer overflow)
  126. It's obvious what this is ... by rob_au · · Score: 1

    It's obvious what this is - KWYIJBO! A big, dumb, balding North American ape. With no chin. And a bad temper.

    There we have it - The question of the hybrid ape solved! For a total of twenty-two points, plus triple-word-score, plus fifty points for using all my letters. Game's over. I'm outta here!

  127. Can't Be Any Worse Than... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Our current bosses, who, without clothes, etc. would resemble apes, complete with fur and a snarling demeanor and the same utter helplessness when it comes to modern (last 5000 years or so) technology. Remember, Apes from Afar hire Your Ape Bosses. (Your bosses' Boss lives out of town, doesn't he?)

    Now that I've said it, get off your ass and go get a real job! So much for working in a "Planet of the Apes" environment. Not so? Tomorrow, look closely at your co-workers for simian traits and appearances.

  128. You thinks? Try it by jonskerr · · Score: 1

    Youthinks sounding like a wounded prey animal specific to this creature isn't clever; could you do it? Could you do it well enough to fool the predator? Smug armchair naturalists..

    --
    O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
  129. Look at the assumptions built into this by jonskerr · · Score: 1

    Ha-ha; "especially when yo consider that gorillas are so poorly endowed when compared to their chimp cousins". This assumes it's the male gorilla and female chimp. Your statement itself provides ample motivation for female gorillas to seek out male chimps, and we all know what sluts male chimps are...
    And no, species don't _magically_ transform from on to another. They evolve that way. Now I've heard, but not seen it myself, that bacteria have been observed changing into something else under the microscope. Though that's hearsay of course.

    --
    O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
    1. Re:Look at the assumptions built into this by rde · · Score: 1

      This assumes it's the male gorilla and female chimp

      It wasn't an assumption; the CNN report mentioned that the mitochondrial dna was chimp-like; this implies a female chimp.

  130. Re:_Clever_ tricks? or Expendible trackers? by Bush+Pig · · Score: 1

    I remember one show when Marlin was attempting to pick up a tiger cub (or something similar), and got quite badly bitten just as the other bloke said, "Watch those sharp teeth and claws, Marlin." It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

    --
    What a long, strange trip it's been.
  131. has anyone seen steve ballmer, recently? by yo5oy · · Score: 1

    ever since i saw the _developers! developers! developers!_, i thought him an entirely different animal. certainly, he can't be human.

    --
    a slut did tulsa
  132. Not starving to death... by heironymouscoward · · Score: 1

    What I have read about the gorillas in Rwanda and Congo, and the chimpanzees in Congo, is that the local people tend to treat the apes with respect and tolerance, all the more so in Rwanda where they used to get a nice income from tourism. The bushmeat hunters are generally outsiders - one particularly horrible example is logging companies, which employ hunters to feed their crews. Logging in the central African forests is gearing up, since these are some of the last big forests left. Logging firms send in crews to rip out the big old trees, and feed these guys on bushmeat.
    It's not a simple question of 'eat or die'. The fate of the big apes in Africa's central forests is tied to the fate of the forests themselves, and as so often, it's outsiders who are benefiting from the destruction, while the inhabitants of the region (human, near human, and whatever) find themselves extinguished.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une signature
  133. A hybrid between two species? by Ed+Avis · · Score: 1

    I thought the definition of species included something like: if two kinds of animal can and do interbreed (producing fertile offspring), then they are the same species.

    This has problems - there might be cases where same-species is not transitive - but if it's possible to create hybrids between two 'different species', what does the word mean?

    --
    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    1. Re:A hybrid between two species? by aimew · · Score: 1

      According to dictionary.com, genus is defined as:

      ----------
      genus

      \Ge"nus\ (j[=e]"n[u^]s), n.; pl. Genera. [L., birth, race, kind, sort; akin to Gr. ?. See Gender, and cf. Benign.] 1. (Logic) A class of objects divided into several subordinate species; a class more extensive than a species; a precisely defined and exactly divided class; one of the five predicable conceptions, or sorts of terms.

      2. (Biol.) An assemblage of species, having so many fundamental points of structure in common, that in the judgment of competent scientists, they may receive a common substantive name. A genus is not necessarily the lowest definable group of species, for it may often be divided into several subgenera. In proportion as its definition is exact, it is natural genus; if its definition can not be made clear, it is more or less an artificial genus.

      Note: Thus in the animal kingdom the lion, leopard, tiger, cat, and panther are species of the Cat kind or genus, while in the vegetable kingdom all the species of oak form a single genus. Some genera are represented by a multitude of species, as Solanum (Nightshade) and Carex (Sedge), others by few, and some by only one known species.
      -------

      Note that Cat would be genus wherein tigers and lions are species. It is possible for tigers and lions to produce offspring (ligers and tigons, depending on which is the father). Therefore it is neither defined nor practiced that interspicies breeding is prohibited.

      I haven't been able to find any hybrids for ape pairings. In fact, to further clarify your question, a hybrid is defined as:

      -------
      hybrid

      (Genetics) The offspring of genetically dissimilar parents or stock, especially the offspring produced by breeding plants or animals of different varieties, species, or races.
      -------

      So there you have it, it is definitely possible to cross-breed species from within a genus or subgenus!

      When in doubt, look it up.

      Idi Amin may have had a chimp or a gorilla for a girlfriend after all! (Maybe one of each! Heh, heh, heh.)

      --
      Keeper of the terrible karma ---
    2. Re:A hybrid between two species? by Ed+Avis · · Score: 1

      Apparently ligers and tigons are almost always infertile. Are there examples of interspecies breeding producing fertile offspring.

      Also, I think the definition of same species is 'can *and do* interbreed'. Man-made pairings don't count I think, only interbreeding in the wild.

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  134. Great News.... by GundyRage · · Score: 0

    ... now Ximian will have something to name its next project!

    Go ahead, my karma sucks!

  135. Mad Geneticist Molests Monkeys by A55M0NKEY · · Score: 1

    Fathers BigFoot

    --

    Eat at Joe's.

  136. I'll agree that it can't be the missing link, but. by klocwerk · · Score: 1

    I can't tell if you're being a troll, an evo bio fanboy, or are just mis-informed about anthropology.
    ever hear of Physical Anthropology?
    Louis Leake and his family? the Lucy fossil?
    I'm a cultural anthropologist, but not all anthropology is cultural.

    Physical anthropologists do it in the dirt. ;o)

    --

    "You worthless post!"
    -Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
  137. Re:I'll agree that it can't be the missing link, b by leandrod · · Score: 1
    > troll

    Perhaps...

    > evo bio fanboy

    Why that? I'm more on the Creationist camp.

    > just mis-informed about anthropology

    This is more like it. Thank you for enlightening me.

    --
    Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
    DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
    GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
  138. Grape? by ENOENT · · Score: 1

    This discovery of a new species of grape ape is sure to lead to major advances in the animation industry.

    --
    That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
  139. hoax? by pbhj · · Score: 1

    Looks like a hoax to me - they report several sightings but have the worst photographic skills ever - these being scientists for which photography skills are pretty key to their research ... the image given on the CNN page doesn't even define a recognisable outline and there are no features to provide scale.

    Picture the scene as you decide to sacrifice one of your staff by making them imitate an injured gazelle. You get out your 3000 UKPound (cost not weight!) camera and switch off the near perfect autofocus. As the apes approach you decide to remove your glasses as you are sure astigmatic eyes are better for focussing. Finally, ensuring lots of foliage is in the way you sit and randomly click the shutter release ... whoops, forgot to point the camera. Still never mind.

    You look round for another guide, hoping to get more stunning photos. Suddenly you realise you're alone.

  140. The new species is called *The Red Monkey* by The+Lynxpro · · Score: 1

    Although he answers to the name "Jared" (the antithesis of "Jared the Subway Guy")... you can see him at: http://www.theredmonkey.com

    --
    "Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
  141. Obviously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The new species is called an African. From what I understand, they are in abundance, and breeding rapidly. If they are not kept in check, they over-breed, lie, cheat, steal, murder, etc. Evidence of this can be seen in today's modern American Ghettos.

    DOH!

  142. Hey, wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's my uncle, you insensitive clod !

  143. Not completely correct by isotope23 · · Score: 1

    Some mules can have offspring. There was an article a few months ago about one that had a "colt?" in egypt. CNN I think.

    It is a once in a blue moon occurance, but I would assume that if this colt was bred, you could integrate Donkeys and horses once again.

    --
    Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
  144. Kakundakari by gacp · · Score: 1

    Well, aggressiveness and territoriality I believe was Crichton's fiction; his kakundakaris are only inspired in the African tale. I can't remember reading anything about the `real' kakundakari---the one people of the Congo claim exists---being specially aggressive or territorial. Only weird for an ape, more man-like, sort of bigfoot. And remember than hominids closely related to humans, both extant (chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla) and fossil (austalopithecines) are African. I myself would not be surprised (although exited, oh boy!!!) if this new ape == kakundakari == australopithecine, probably big like Paranthropus bosei.

    About being shy and avoiding contact with humans---well, australopithecines are supposed to have been pretty britght, right? Any non-human hominid with any cranial capacity will do well to stay clear of Homo sapiens. Actually, this is valid for most humans too, to stay away from people like (e.g.) Rumsfeld, although these kind of humans I prefer to refer to another species, Homo demens

    .
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    ``L'imagination au povoir.''
  145. Forget the scientists by Trailwalker · · Score: 1

    What do NFL recruiters say.

  146. Site with more pictures, DNA info and more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  147. Re:is it just me by Luke+Skyewalker · · Score: 1

    your daughter's a fuckin whore. at least a mormon boy won't shoot in her eye ;)