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

Here are more pictures.

[rkz]

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

Re:Here are more pictures.

[tkittel]

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

and here is yet another great ape...

That explains it...

[Call Me Black Cloud]

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.

Re:That explains it...

[bj8rn]

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.

_Clever_ tricks?

[errl]

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 :).

Re:_Clever_ tricks?

[Queuetue]

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

Re:_Clever_ tricks?

[MrHanky]

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.

Re:_Clever_ tricks?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:_Clever_ tricks?

[S.Lemmon]

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

What is amazing is..

[SystematicPsycho]

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.
--

Re:What is amazing is..

[errl]

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".

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:What is amazing is..

[TomV]

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

Re: What is amazing is..

[Black Parrot]

> 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.

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.

Re:What is amazing is..

[Skjellifetti]

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.

Re:What is amazing is..

[mishac]

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....

Re:What is amazing is..

[Ella the Cat]

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.

Re:What is amazing is..

[forgotmypassword]

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.

evolution

[Ugodown]

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.

What in the world.......

[Millbuddah]

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!

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.

Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp

[MuParadigm]

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.

Re:It's probably a subspecies of giant chimp

[rde]

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.

Obligatory reply

[Eric Ass Raymond]

I for one welcome our new ape masters.

Some more

[suteri]

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

http://karlammann.com/bondo.html

Yeti at home

[emptybody]

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..

Re:Yeti at home

[jackb_guppy]

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.

Ape Poo

[Davak]

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

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).

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 =]

good news for anthropologists

[PhysicsExpert]

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.

Re:good news for anthropologists

[qwertyatwork]

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

In Related News...

[1s44c]

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

Hot news

[simgod]

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"

Ape Video

[spudchucker]

Mpeg video evidence of the of the ape has been floating around the web since the mid 70's.

Not impressed

[dnoyeb]

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.

Re:Here are some pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

How dare you insult the intelligence of apes!

More American jobs lost

[hackrobat]

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).

Re:_Clever_ tricks? or Expendible trackers?

[IDigUNIX]

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".

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?

A loaf of bread, a twig of ants & thou...

[xigxag]

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.

Re:A loaf of bread, a twig of ants & thou...

[bill_mcgonigle]

those inversions would lead to cross-breeding sterility.

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

Probably a large chimpanzee

[heironymouscoward]

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.

Wrong Ape movie

[AndroidCat]

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.

Oliver

[mrbuttle]

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.

Re:Oliver

[0111 1110]

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.

Mediumfoot

[gelfling]

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

Steve Ballmer

[GQuon]

Just what I was thinking.
Dance monkey boy!

why the shock and surprise?

[Wan2Be]

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.

Re:_Clever_ tricks? or Expendible trackers?

[bj8rn]

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.

Hybrid?

[sin(theta)]

Alright, who's been having sex with gorillas?

Re:Compare this to the "mystery ape" in Nortwest U

[DCheesi]

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...

Other Clever Ideas they had...

[Dareth]

"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".

One good picture here

[m4g02]

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

Nah ...

[zonix]

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

z

Don't know what it is

[smallfeet]

but I hear it is running for governor of California.

Re:_Clever_ tricks? or Expendible trackers?

[AndroidCat]

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.)

Further Reading

[nicklott]

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

Re:_Clever_ tricks? ???

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:its not a hybrid

[tunesmith]

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

Covering all your bases?

[Tony Hoyle]

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 :)

I call troll! MOD PARENT DOWN!

[Daetrin]

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.

Homer!

[Drakker]

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. ;)