The Mellow Baboon

obehave writes " You've seen life in a baboon troop on TV: the epitome of nasty, brutish, and short. So what happens when a baboon troop loses its nastiest, most brutish members? PLoS Biology, an open-access science journal, reports the curious story of a baboon troop which lost the nastiest half of its male population through natural causes. The troop became different and the difference persisted through a generational change. Here's the synopsis, the full article, and a commentary."

Comments

Re:Summary?

[PateraSilk]

Actually, baboons are a little smaller than chimps:

Baboon

Chimp

Although the big males of the troop are pretty big, they're still 7 kg smaller than big male chimps.

I still wouldn't wanna mess with one, though.

As far as I remember they don't "send" them

[SmallFurryCreature]

Live as a low ranking male just isn't much fun. So if the current leader is in his prime and there are a couple of other hopefulls, it might just be wiser to try to get into an other group where the leadership is a bit past it and the competition is a bit less.

Baboons are far better predators then chimps. Basically baboons are a top predator. Meaning they eat and are not eaten.

Chimps are predators as well but more human. Meaning a while group of chimps can catch one small monkey but they do it by teamwork.

If you are in africa and you encounter a chimp the chimp will run. if you are in africa and you encounter a baboon you better hope it ain't hungry or pissed off.

Re:As far as I remember they don't "send" them

[Bothari]

Basically baboons are a top predator. Meaning they eat and are not eaten

Almost but not quite: any large cat will attack and eat a baboon if given half a chance. Some Leopards specialize in them, actually. It is not a completly safe meal and there are reports of stalking leopards getting killed by their prey.

Lions, however, are no contest ...

Re:Yeah, well.

[sgt101]

Isn't anyone else surprised that the critters have never evolved new and better fighting styles? I mean a human in a forest could within an hour create enough weapons to fight off a single baboon or two (well, maybe not a chair-bound worker from America but you get my point :-). Why haven't these critters learned anything from humans?

Because they are Baboons, and Baboons are not real bright.

Ok flippancy aside; no one knows is the real answer. But one theory is that the ability to figure out how to crack open long bones from scavenged out carcasses on the savannah provided the fuel for an evolutionary upward spiral; more protein = more smarts = more breeding = more smarts = more protein...

Another theory is that Humans were aquatic adapted apes (we have a lack of body hair, subcutaneous fat layer, fat distributions for floating face up, swimming ability, dive reflex all of which could be argued to be aquatic adaptations). We started eating fish and shellfish and promptly acquired smarts. Interestingly evidence indicates that fish oils can be given to children to boost their brain power, and can be given to prisoners to boost their problem solving and social skills! Also interesting is the fact that humans seem to only like raw fish and shell fish amongst raw meats Kobe Beef aside??? Unfortunately there is not a shred of archaeological evidence to support these ideas, and some people argue that the so called aquatic adaptations are't really aquatic in nature and just a co-incidence (still remember the baby on the front of Nevermind - it looked pretty adapted!)

Finally the most prosaic theory is that standing upright enabled superior brain cooling (I kid you not) and thus enabled big brains for all.

But as I say, anyone who knows says nothing - as they were there, and they are dead!