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Chimps Found Making Own Weapons to Hunt for Food
Pojut writes "The Washington Post has an article involving chimps and weapons. Apparently, there have been direct observations of chimps in the west African savannah modifying sticks to create spears. They then use these spears to kill small mammals and eat them. It is the first time that an animal other than a human has been directly observed in crafting a weapon for the purpose of hunting or killing."
The next stage of evolution won't be long now.
In a few years scientists will discover the monkeys have learnt how to lash these sticks together to make chairs.
Throwing these at their prey is more effective because it fucking kills them.
liqbase
We need to nip this in the bud, before they learn to ride horses, shoot guns, speak english and hunt humans for sport. But if they do, I for one welcome our new simian overlords, and I wish to remind you that as a programmer, I am fatty and full of cholesterol.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Some attitudes replaced or by cgi optimizes
That's nothing. They've already learned how to get into houses... White houses seem especially vulnerable.
What if they start killing endangered animals?
I don't much care where the chimps evolve to...
I would like to know if this is a learned behavior from an outside source or if this is simply something they have discovered on their own.
There is always a frontier where there is an open and willing mind
I don't care what the UN says. Those weapons could be dangerous. If we got Hitler when he was at this stage, imagine how many people we'd have saved.
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By any chance, was a mysterious 1x4x9 slab of black stone found in the near vicinity, as well?
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
We need to nip this in the bud, before they learn to ride horses, shoot guns
Too late
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Should have the DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2006.12.042 when it's published (it's NOT active yet - give it some time).
However, from a quick reading of the paper, this seems to be a simple extension of the ant-nest probing behavior (i.e. jam a stick into a nest and feed off the ants/termites that rush out). What *is* interesting is that the chimps appear to have crafted these tools through a number of steps (which is uncommon, AFAIK, the only other animal to do this is the New Caledonian Crow.
henry -- the human evolution news relay
By no one's definition of the term could creatures who place a truckload of high explosives into a crowded marketplace and blow hundreds of people to meat chunks be considered human.
Congratulations. Dehumanization is the first important step down the path to genocide. The jews in Nazi Germany weren't "human" either. Carry on.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Now that there's reliable intelligence indicating that the chimps in Senegal are building weapons, an US led invasion should not be far.
You take the anvil, go on top of a very tall cliff, and drop it on your prey. Works also with grand pianos and safes in place of the anvils.
Be aware however that it's not foolproof. If you're standing on a ledge and you let go of the anvil, you may find it's you and the ledge that drops, not the anvil. There's also the risk that you'll miss the roadrunner, and the anvil will instead bounce back up, higher than when you dropped it, and fall on your head. You will then be pushed through the ledge and plummet to the ground. The anvil will then fall on you. As will the ledge.
That's my guess.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.