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.

_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.

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.

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.

Obligatory reply

[Eric Ass Raymond]

I for one welcome our new ape masters.

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 =]

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nah ...

[zonix]

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

z