Macaque Monkey Goes Totally Bipedal

Freshly Exhumed writes "Add another bonus point for the Darwinians/evolutionists. A macaque at the Safari Park Zoo in Ramat Gan, Israel has recovered from a near-fatal illness in an unusual way: she has switched exclusively to walking on her hind legs. Given theories of human history that stress the effect of disease on events and changes, as in William H. McNeill's Plagues and Peoples, what if an illness was the cause of the shift to bipedal motion by our evolutionary ancestors, and rote imitation by offspring or another set of circumstances locked it in? No matter, this could be a fascinating study of the macaque's altered brain functions."

Comments

Now...

[Pantero Blanco]

...what remains to be seen, is if the macaque spreads the knowledge of how to walk on two legs permanently by teaching its young or other apes. If it doesn't, then the incident will be nothing more than a curiosity. If it does...we may have seen a major evolutionary breakthrough in a species.

Polo a cause for upright posture also.

[DumbSwede]

I once saw a special on some apes, I can't remember if it was chimpanzees or gorillas, but they were getting polo from human vectors. One ape had a totally paralyzed arm, and had to walk upright the rest of its life. The documentary aired 5-10 years ago, but I remember thinking at the time that there might be a connection to upright walking in the evolution of humans. I'm sure it must have occurred to the primate observers also, though they didn't mention it in the documentary.

Maybe some other /.er can come up with the name of the documentary. This can't be a new insight.

Question to the anthropologist nerds...

[iamdrscience]

Has anyone done a study on whether human bipedalism is due to the behavior learned from surrounding people or if there are practical reasons for why we hardly ever walk on all fours? That is, do we just walk on two legs most of the time because everybody else does?

Re:Question to the anthropologist nerds...

[Baby Duck]

Piers Anthony's Geodessey Series presents fictional accounts of a few different theories as to how bipedalism came about.

Those books have an extensive bibliography of anthropolgical works, so if you read a particular story that catches your eye, you have an excellent jumping point from which you can find out what he's basing it on.

I'm trying to remember off the top of my head, so I'm bound not to get all of this right:

1) In order to birth larger-head primates, the pelvic bones had to shift to bipedalism

2) In dryer times, bipedalism allowed greater roaming ranges, in order to find more food

3) When roaming so much out in the open with little protection from the sun, you absorb a lot less sunlight when upright since not as much surface area is perpendicular to the sun's rays

4) Our entire respiratory system is geared towards cooling off our heads, since our large brains produce so much heat. Changes to the lungs and chest cavity favored bipedalism.

These are just theories. I know in recent years, there has been a lot of evidence to show that areas thought to have been dry savannahs were actually quite lush in the time periods man was thought to have gone bipedal. Kinda throws a monkeywrench into it.

But bipedalism could have come about in a relatively small area, geographically secluded from the rest. When the primates finally did have the capacity to leave that area, they were able to quickly dominate the other humanoids across entire continents, trees or no trees.

Re:Question to the anthropologist nerds...

[superyooser]

I hadn't looked at that site in a while. I just did and found this example about Saturday Mthiyane, a child in South Africa who lived with monkeys:

Saturday's feral characteristics
Saturday exhibited characteristics in common with many other feral children. "He was very violent during his first days here. He used to break things in the kitchen, get in and out through windows. He didn't play with other kids and instead he used to beat them. He liked uncooked red meat", said Ethel Mthiyane. "He didn't like blankets. He wanted to sleep naked and he hated clothing."

Ten years later
Saturday is one of the few modern children to have been followed up. When the Johannesburg Mail and Guardian visited the school ten years later, they found that Saturday was still unable to speak. He had been taught to walk, but was still refusing to eat cooked food, preferring raw vegetables instead; bananas remained his favourite fruit.

Re:A Theory: Gravity assist for weakend stomach

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Could be. Worth looking into.

But I'd put my money on weakening of the arms, whether through loss of control or coordination through nerve damage or some other flu side-effect, making quadrapedal motion difficult.

For a four-legger like a dog this would be crippling. (Dogs can't do two-legs for long due to blood pressure issues.) But for a monkey or ape with both four and two legged gaits, it's just an annoyance: Just drop the one that doesn't work so well any more and you're hardly bothered. (Like a kid with a knee injury no longer skipping.)

Re:Disease damages motor functions..

[Ungrounded Lightning]

It depends on how well she develops the ability. Walking upright makes you easier to catch, running upright makes you much harder to.

For a monkey or ape, which doesn't have the adaptations for it, running up right is slower than on all fours. (That's why they switch back to all four when in a hurry.)

The advantage of the two-legged walk for people is that it is lower-energy, not that it's faster. This lets us jog for a long time, at speeds that quickly overheat and exhaust prey animals until they drop from heat prostration.

People can outrun some horses in a very short sprint (though I wouldn't bet on it for quarterhorses). And they can jog down darn near anything. But in the middle distances other animals do better.

It may have been a defect when the first human did it, but it survived and we ended up all the better for it.

In particular it gave us a new hunting mode (like wolf packs but better) that, in combination with freeing the hands for weapon use, put us on top of the food chain and gave us the safety and leisure to develop agriculture and technology.

People only use 10% of their brains

[qwasty]

The notion that humans only use 10% of their brains is completely wrong. It stemmed from the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, that was published in 1936. On page 206 Carnegie quotes Professor William James, a psychologist at Harvard, as saying

"Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use."

And furthermore, on page 11 of the foreward, Lowell Thomas misquotes Professor James where he says

"Professor William James of Harvard used to say that the average man develops only 10 percent of his latent mental ability."

So, maybe Professor James did actually say something like that, but he said it just as a motivator for people, not because it had any basis in scientific research. The only reason "everyone knows" that people only use 10% of their brains is because of Dale Carnegie's wildly popular book, which incidentally, was marketed to sales people, who are notoriously science-illiterate.

To put it into perspective, would you be as intelligent as you are now if you lost 90% of your brain? It's sad that American school teachers sometimes teach this crap in their classrooms, when it's only raison d'etre is a misquote in a 1930's book for salesmen.

Re:Hallelujah!

[builderbob_nz]

I'll probably get flamed and modded down for this post, but grow up! As a Christian, it really iritates me when people act childish like this. So the Macaque is still alive because it is walking upright, I think thats great, everything deserves a chance to survive. Do I go off my rocker because I don't agree with the whole Dawinian approach, no, I just see this as an animal that has learned to adapt to a personal situation (this sort of thing happens all the time without it leading to evolutionary leaps). While it may give the evolutionists some "ammo" I just sit back and let them have their fun for now.

Re:Score another one for creationists

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The problem is that creationism is pseudo-science, often by people trying to "prove" their religion, or trying to find a way to squeak in religion edgewise as a subject legitimately teachable in public schools.

For one, one does not read a book intended for spiritual enlightenment as a history book. That is the using-a-saw-as-a-hammer approach, such that its usefulness is somewhat limited because that is outside the scope of the texts. Have you ever tried to read about the complete history of Nevada in a book about the WW II nuclear programs? It majorly falls short.

Many of the same people read far too literally into such texts, particularly concerning the creation accounts, of which there are at least two accounts in the Hebrew Torah. Both are conflicting accounts, if you take them literally. If one says one is literal, the other non-literal, then you have an argument on which one is literal.

The people that try to claim that the earth is young and claim that is provable now, either are lying, are ignorant or couldn't pass a decent set of college science and math classes such as calculus, statistics, geology and second-year chemistry, because they pass off "facts" that seem to contradict some basic experiments I've done. Some try to make up some BS theories on radiation, but there are greater holes in those theories than they claim are in old-earth and evolution theories.

But this monkey likely tells us nothing about either theory.

Re:A point for Darwinism? I see no point in this.

[Tyreth]

The foundation of common ancestry evolution is centred around God.

Let me explain, through an application of Occam's razor. Assume that God does not exist. What seems the most likely explanation of the origin of life and its consequent formation into what we see today? Undoubtedly, Darwinism.

Assume that God does exist. Assume that God does not exist. What seems the most likely explanation of the origin of life and its consequent formation into what we see today? Undoubtedly, special creation.

So the debate is far from scientific - it is a debate rooted in the question of whether God exists or not, and what His role in Creation is. I do not deny that natural selection occurs, species are formed and adapt, and that a change in allele frequencies occur. I deny the likelihood that all living things share a common ancestor. Knowing beyond doubt that God exists means that Occam's razor principle leads me to accept the simplest answer - God specially created all living things, including your appendix.

This is a LOSS for Darwin

[puppetluva]

Instead of a win for Darwin, this would actually be a win for Lamarck (whom Darwin discredited). If the acquired behavior seen in these monkeys is passed on to their offspring, it would prove Lamarck's "Theory of Aquired Characteristics".

Here's a reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarck

Re:This is a LOSS for Darwin

[michaelggreer]

Lamarck was wrong in terms of biological evolution, but cultural evolution is quite Lamarckian: we do indeed pass on learned traits to our offspring. This particular example seems specious, even pointless, however. There is no evidence of anything being passed on at all. If there is, it would point to culture in the monkeys, not Lamarckian evolution.

Re:Hallelujah!

[Laser Lou]

While it may give the evolutionists some "ammo" I just sit back and let them have their fun for now

Evolution doesn't need "ammo." Enough evidence was gathered for it over 100 years ago. It's like physics; you understand it, or you don't.

Re:One thing is for sure...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

The adaptation that allows our skull to contain our nice big brain is actually a mutation that keeps our skull in the same shape as an infant ape's. (Apes have a round skull at birth, but the forehead flattens out during maturity.)

So not only are we brain damaged monkeys. We are immature brain-damaged monkeys.

Re:Disease damages motor functions..

[Kunta Kinte]

The advantage of the two-legged walk for people is that it is lower-energy, not that it's faster.

Care to back that up?

Last time I heard there was no consensus amongst investigators on how we ended up walking upright entirely.

Here's one theory.

Another I've heard is that since our ancestors spent a lot of time on the savanahs, standing upright was a great benefit, eg. priarie dogs lookouts. We went one better cause we could see predators for long distances without having to stop and stand, whilst making our way long distances. Definately a great benefit. Think about trying to make your way across a grassland with sparse trees, and large predators lurking for instance.

Truth is, there are many probable theories.

Also, that "less energy" argument sounds weak to me. Transportion is a very important function for all animals, and also energy efficiency right up there too. You mean to say that no other mammal as caught on to this bipedal thing as yet? From the fastest cheetahs to the slowest sloths?

grasping at Invisible straws

[netsavior]

Amazing to what dishonest lengths EVERYONE will go to promote their religion. At least evolutionists dont ask me for money.

It has to do with the larger, heavier brain.

[Theovon]

One of the things that bipedalism gave us was the ability to carry a larger brain. Rather than having to hold the head up, we just sortof balance it on the top of the spine.

Try crawling around for a while on all fours. Besides getting sore knees, you'll also get a sore neck from holding your head up. (Although the fact that our spine connects to the skull in a different place from that of quadrupeds may exacerbate the problem.)

But don't let this confuse you. Having a larger brain did not cause us to go bipedal just so we could hold our heads up. Evolution doesn't work that way (with quadrupeds, brains larger than what gives an immediate advantage are selected against). Instead, our ancestors developed bipedalism because it was a hunting advantage... you can see farther and not occupy your hands with the act of moving (as someone else in this forum already mentioned). But then that allowed us to develop larger brains (and thicker skulls *g*) which kinda got us cornered this way (that is, our larger brains are now a selection criterion against NOT being bipedal).

(BTW, the thicker skulls thing is serious, though, when you consider Neandertals.)

So, to answer your question, bipedalism is not a learned thing in modern humans. We evolved to be this way, we don't function well if we don't walk upright, and children pretty much figure it out on their own (although watching others may help a little).

Also, besides bipedalism, another way to be able to develop a larger brain is to be aquatic. (Floating is good.) Thus, we have dolphins.

Re:It has to do with the larger, heavier brain.

[tehdaemon]

" and children pretty much figure it out on their own"

I think it is instinctive, not learned. I have been watching my nieces. One loved walking (with help, you had to hold her hands) before she ever learned to crawl. Her balance was almost good enough to walk on her own at that point. (she had learned though that 'I can walk if they hold my hands' and wouldn't try). Another is now about 6 months. Stand her on her feet and provide balance and she is content to stand, and she provids all the support. (I did this less than a week ago) She can't quite sit up on her own yet though.

I think crawling, and rolling are learned behaviors, and walking, and the upright position are instinctive. Or, as you said it "bipedalism is not a learned thing in modern humans." I think you meant 'children learn that to function well they need to be upright, (due to their physical form) and so they learn to walk.' I think that they learn to walk because being upright is instinctively the right position to be in.

Re:It has to do with the larger, heavier brain.

[maxpublic]

Instead, our ancestors developed bipedalism because it was a hunting advantage...

Actually, that's probably not true. Bipedalism most likely developed to a) be able to see oncoming predators easier, and b) to free the hands so that food could be carried from place to place (a *huge* advantage in survival, if you can take food with you while on the move, especially if the area you're moving through is a poor harvest ground).

While it's quaint and somewhat heroic to believe our ancestors were 'mighty hunters', in point of fact they pretty much sucked at it. Prior to Cro-Magnon it's estimated that our ancestors gained about 95% of their calories through fruits and vegetables, supplemented mostly by insects. After Cro-Magnon and continuing right up to the Agricultural Revolution for Homo Sapiens this percentage was stable at around 80%-85%, depending on where you lived.

Humans weren't terribly efficient hunters. They were very good gatherers, but as hunters they were the least effective predator on Earth, until recently.

There is one hominid off-shoot that was *very* good at hunting: Neanderthal. In opposition to human beings and others of our direct line, most Neanderthal calories came from meat, approximately 85% in fact. They did very little gathering because they were consummate hunters and didn't need to do much to supplement their diet. Neanderthals were the only hominid that could be considered 'good' hunters; the rest, including us, were just plain lousy at it most of the time.

Max

Re:It has to do with the larger, heavier brain.

[DunbarTheInept]

because it was a hunting advantage..

Most primates are omnivores that get most sustenance from plants, and only supplement it with meat from time to time, and that meat is typically just bugs. So I have a hard time believing that hunting was important to an unintelligent ancestor (now, once intelligence starts creeping in, it gets different, as that means diet can be deliberately changed at will).

But there are several other possible advantages to being bipedal:

- The ability to see far was probably more of a defensive than an offensive thing. A predator using the grass as cover has a harder time sneaking up on the creature who can see from a taller vantage point down into the grass.

- Some primates other than humans do use some primitive tools. It could be that simple tool-use (i.e. a stick) predates (and caused) intelligence, and that the fact that a stick is easier to wield when you don't need your hands to walk might have been the trigger for bipedalism.

- Climbing trees is easier when you can stand on your hind legs and hold your balance while reaching for the next branches. The irony if this was the reason for bipedalism, is that bipedalism is what made us not need to bother with all the tree climbing in the first place.

Re:Disease damages motor functions..

[Cyberllama]

True it makes you much slower, but it in terms of energy effeciency it's a no brainer. A famous anthropologist who's name escapes me once did a demonstration to make this point. He started chasing after a gazelle and of course was QUICKLY outpaced, but he continue to jog after it slow and steady. Everytime he'd close the gap, the gazelle woould bolt.

After a little while though, the gazelle was totally exhausted. On 4 legs it was much faster, but it was burning quite a bit more energy to escape. Eventaully he caught up to the gazalle and was able to basically do wahtever he wanted to it. The gazalle was simply too exhausted to keep running. . .

Also keep in mind that amonst tall savanah grasses, walking upright lets you see over the grasses and see predators sooner.

In otherwords, upright locomotion certainly has a downside, but its also got alot of nicepoints. It really just depends on the niche you're trying to fill.

Re:A point for Darwinism? I see no point in this.

[eraserewind]

I do not deny that natural selection occurs, species are formed and adapt, and that a change in allele frequencies occur.

How come you say that natural selection occurs? Don't you mean that evolution occurs? From my understanding (which is limited), evolution is "a fact". Darwin's explanation of that fact is his "Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection". There are alternative scientific explanations, some of them largely debunked, and Darwin's has most (all?) of the evidence pointing towards it being correct, but the mechanism of evolution is still debated among scientists.

For example gravity is similarly "a fact", but the fact that Newton's "Theory of Gravity" has been superceeded by Einstein's doesn't change the fact of gravity.

For a Christian a "Theory of Evolution by Divine Intervention" would be as good an explanation as any (albeit one totally lacking evidence). But it seems to me that if you say that natural selection exists, then you have accepted Darwin's explanation for evolution (and man's origins).

Re:Theory of evolution scientific?

[Cyno]

So you're arguement is it is more likely that lifeforms instantly appeared as a creation of God instead of evolving over the hundreds of millions or possibly billions of years they have existed? Can you fathom how long a million years is? How about a billion? Its a really long time, y'know.

Why haven't christian scientists provided us a "theory" to explain this? It is scientificly provable is it not?

theory - a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses"; "true in fact and theory"

We ask for data and experimentation to prove your hypothesis that your God, the one that has a son named Jesus, is The Creator. That's all we ask. Then Intelligent Design might be taken a little more seriously, but it is hardly being ignored. But what about Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism. They can't all be right can they?

That's why we have science. It at least tries to derive truth by observing reality and recording the facts in the most objective manner possible given our extremely subjective human perspectives. And then it gives up trying to insist its authority when it has been proven wrong. So its really quite simple. Prove it wrong. Use science against itself.

I won't pretend to know anything about stem cell research.

Intelligent Design

Evilution

We have observed and recorded the observations of both mutation and natural selection in our history. Yet we have no recorded evidence of the existence of this Intelligent Designer. Can you please explain this for lazy potheads like myself who probably don't have a freakin clue?

I might have a hypothesis to explain this intelligence in all these complex lifeforms. Actually I doubt its a real hypothesis, but anyway here it goes. The laws of physics describe the 4 known forces of nature and might appear intelligent to someone new to science. But as we learn more we find more mathematical complexity in the very fabric of our universe than is taught in our most prestigious universities. These "laws" of physics are highly dependant on our perspective within this universe. And our perspective is rather limitted compared to the whole of our macro/micro universe. So its highly unlikely that we will know-it-all anytime in the near future. And it will take even longer when we have religious and/or political groups insisting their new "science" is more accurate than those theories that have withstood hundreds of years of criticism. Propoganda and belief don't count as scientific evidence, sorry.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science says:

Whereas, ID proponents claim that contemporary evolutionary theory is incapable of explaining the origin of the diversity of living organisms;

Whereas, to date, the ID movement has failed to offer credible scientific evidence to support their claim that ID undermines the current scientifically accepted theory of evolution;

Whereas, the ID movement has not proposed a scientific means of testing its claims;

Therefore Be It Resolved, that the lack of scientific warrant for so-called "intelligent design theory" makes it improper to include as a part of science education;

Therefore Be Further It Resolved, that AAAS urges citizens across the nation to oppose the establishment of policies that would permit the teaching of "intelligent design theory" as a part of the science curricula of the public schools;

Therefore Be It Further Resolved, that AAAS calls upon its members to assist those engaged in overseeing science edu

Re:Redundancy also selected for by evolution

[mysticgoat]

This monkey's arms and hands are no longer tied up in locomotion. She could now do things like easily carrying a tool from one place to another, things which would not have been feasible before. I think that gives her a significant "evolutionary edge" (I'm queasy about applying the term to an individual rather than a species, but I can't think of a better expression).

Another point is that not all evolution is genetic, nor is all heredity genetic. Some social animals have cultures that evolve independently of genetics. I'm sure you can think of at least one example.

I'm rather hoping this macaque gets a flash of insight and starts carrying around a digging stick or pair of nut-cracking rocks...

Re:Theory of evolution scientific?

[MBraynard]

Unaware of that example. Got a link?

Here's a thought though. If it's a new species, then who was the first one going to breed with? Wouldn't this mutation have to simultaneously occured to two of them in proximity so they could mate? Talk about long odds.

Or maybe it was already part of their genetic code and simply rare?

Re:Theory of evolution scientific?

[cruachan]

Just posted on this elsewhere. The idiocy, and power, of the Religious Right in America is going to be one of the prime reasons for the decline of the USA.

The USA is now loosing heavily in stem cell and related areas of reseach. There's an increasing rate of migration of good life scientists out of the states and into Europe. Of course it's not absolute, but in this prime technology of the 21st century America is going to loose, and loose badly, in innovation to the EU.

And that's just at the top. Maybe more important the USA is loosing from below. With the spread of both the teaching of 'Creationism' and the lack of teaching of Evolution (where it's judged too controvesial to teach either) the USA is both loosing potential life scientists and producing a climate where life science research is regarded with suspicion and undervalued. Again of course it's not absolute, but it'll be enough to erode any advantage the US has and pass the torch to Europe.

Now who knows how important the biological sciences will eventually be in terms of society and economy? Maybe, as has been the case up to now, traditional engineering will continue to dominate and the relative decline of the USA will not be too great. On the other hand maybe the future is heavily dominated by molecular biology. Maybe we can treat aging, design babies to remove genetic defects and increase IQ, grow biological computers, use biological engineering rather than chemical engineering and much else.

Some of these may be desirable, other not, but one thing is certain - in Europe, when such innovations are researched and developed the decision to use them or not will be made on democratic, pragmatic, secular grounds. In the USA the decision will be made on the basis of a 2000+ year old text.

A trditional south african hunting method.

[Anonymous Coward]

I forget what it was called, but this was a method used by some traditional south africans. Find the fittest and fastest dear/gazelle (whatever i cant remember that too!) and chase it. After 10 to 20km it would just be exausted and just lie down at which stage it became dinner. Interestingly of the tribe/hunter group chasing it only one person would chase, the others would just lag behind until the prey was worn out. By chasing the fastest and strongest, they always ensured that each generation was slower and thus made it easier for the next...