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."

Comments

It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp

[grug0]

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.

Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp

[rde]

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.

Some more

[suteri]

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

http://karlammann.com/bondo.html

Re:What is amazing is..

[leandrod]

> 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.

Re:Ape Poo

[scrub76]

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).

I thought about Cichton's book, Congo.

[gacp]

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?

Re:Ape Poo

[tulare]

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 =]

Re: What is amazing is..

[Black Parrot]

> 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.