The animal I have chosen to study is the Japanese macaque, more commonly known as the Japanese snow monkey. Sir David Attenborough recently described the macaque as “one of the most successful and versatile of all primates”, commending its capacity to be “versatile, resilient, enterprising, tough and capable of surviving in extreme conditions”. This essay will continue by examining the Japanese macaque in a number of ways. Firstly, I will describe the physical characteristics of the animal, paying
The Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata) is a unique species of primate that has a distinct red appearance and an infamous classist society. The behavior of macaques can be partitioned into four categories: mating, parenting, communication, and culture. The Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata) is native to Japan, and is the most northerly occurring non-human primate in the animal kingdom (Mobilereference, 2008). They constitute a genus of terrestrial Old World monkeys from the subfamily of Cercopithecinae
Many people do keep big cats like bobcats, tigers, and lions as pets. Experts estimate that there are around 10,000 to 15,000 tigers now kept as pets or in private facilities in the US. However, what we don't know is that more and more pet tigers and other big cats end up neglected or given up to sanctuaries because their owners cannot care for them. Owners of big cats who execute their way to provide appropriate housing and diet have no problems, but there are countless others who are very mistaken
same species but of no relation) can be observed across the animal kingdom from lions to birds, but primates have been observed to practice this phenomenon more than any other order. It has been observed in several species ranging from chimps to macaques, but it appears that a large proportion of infanticides have one thing in common; they are followed by a mating of the aggressor with the widowed mother. Some of the observations make use of game theory, and explain these actions in terms of risks
Exotic Animals Are Dangerous Exotic animals kill and injure people each year, and are very dangerous in the wrong conditions. The animals are kept in housing that doesn’t suit them, and are kept away from the other animals in its family. They aren’t fed their natural foods, don’t have proper sleeping conditions, and don’t have enough space. Exotic animals are animals that most people think shouldn't be kept because of a few reasons: they are dangerous, they need proper housing, and they aren’t very
genes. There have been several cases where an entire troop has learned from the experiences of just a few. In a group of Japanese macaques, for example, a three-year-old female female developed the habit of washing dirt of of sweet potatoes before she ate them. First her mother, and then peers and then the entire troop started washing their potatoes too. Another macaque troop has a similar experience when a group of dominant males learned to eat wheat. Within an hour, the practice had spread throughout
Most of the medications that we in market today have been tested and proven effective for animals before prescribing them to human beings. However, would it feel good to know that every year, hundreds of thousands of animals are captured from the wild and die just because of these said experiments? For many years now, scientists have been using animals for their laboratory experiments to produce new medicines. Although scientists have been using this process for many decades in the field of medicine
Animal Emotions Do animals feel joy, love, fear, anguish or despair? What ere emotions, and perhaps more importantly, how do scientists prove animals are capable of emotion? Sea lion mothers have often been seen wailing painfully and squealing eerily as they watch their babies being eaten by killer whales. Buffaloes have also been observed sliding playfully across ice, excitedly screaming “Gwaaa.” Emotions are defined broadly as psychological phenomena that help in behavioral management and
At the turn of the new century, activists begun to protest the morality of animal experimentation: “… such methodology is far too cruel on beast, it cannot better mankind, but its lead to it demise…” Despite the rising concern for animal safety in laboratory research, federal legislations approved the practice. According to the federal bureaucrats, it is an essential tool to improve our current medical knowledge. Hence, most of the tested animals have a relatively shorter life span than human. Thus
Love is Blind! Just Not Color Blind? A panel of individuals, each a minority, indicate that they believe they have been affected by their race in dating profiles. Jessica Williams and Ronny Chieng of The Daily Show examined this issue of sexual racism (Parang and O’Neil, 2016). Although this feature is presented on a satirical news program, does not mean that a problem does not exist or should not be addressed. “Sexual racism is a specific form a racial prejudice enacted in the context of sex or
prepare their food by cooking it as this helps with easier digestion and extraction of nutrients from the food. Although primates do not cook their food, Japanese macaque monkeys have been observed to wash potatoes that are covered with sand prior to eating the potatoes (Boesch, 2003). This behavior not only displays culture amongst the macaque monkeys, it also shows that they have the cognitive a... ... middle of paper ... ... the gorillas are taken away from their family and are living in captivity
As elevation increases, wildlife productivity usually decreases due to lower temperatures, thinner air, and lack of moisture, but several primate species have successfully colonized high altitude habitats despite these environmental stressors (Grow et al 2013). Since mountainous regions are often inaccessible, scientists have only recently made strides to explore primate ecology in these areas and the potential applications to conservation and evolution. Many monkeys defy the dangers of hypothermia
The third hypothesis, the unawareness of death hypothesis (Hrdy 1999) states proposes that the mothers cannot distinguish between the live and dead body, atleast for the first few days, hence carry them as if they were still alive. In Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys (Li et al. 2012 ), it was recorded that the behaviour of the mothers changed after the death of the infant, with increased grooming and social avoidance, which is atypical of normal behaviour. The mode of carrying these infants also changed
the researchers to take care of them and get little to no care just for the sake of scientific research. For example “the real mother macaques, realizing their babies were being stolen, screaming and banging their heads against the cage; the infants choo-chooing as they were hurled into a separate space. […] The cages were smeared gold with grief, the infant macaques all balled over themselves with their tails held high to show their tiny oozing anuses” (Slater137). It is clear that the monkeys were
Imitation is the ability to copy another's behaviour, this may be because the behaviour is adaptive. Kawai (1965) studied Japanese macaques and found that due to one monkey's actions (Imo), a large amount of the macaque population acquired a useful behaviour in a 5-year period. Kawai reported that Imo would wash her sweet potatoes before consumption, later other macaque monkeys showed the same behaviour. Kawai thus suggested that the rest of the monkeys had imitated Imo's behaviour. Galef suggested
Monkeys are haplorhine primates, a group generally possessing tails and consisting of about 260 known living species. Many monkey species are tree-dwelling (arboreal), although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Most species are also active during the day (diurnal). Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent, particularly Old World monkeys. There are two major types of monkey: New World monkeys (platyrrhines) from South and Central America and Old World
Whether it be for a class field trip or a leisurely activity, most of us have been to the zoo, and most certainly have seen the apes and monkeys. It seems as though us humans are drawn to the primate section of the zoo, but why? Is it because they don 't exist ubiquitously throughout the world, or is it simply that we love to see some swing through the trees while others pound their chest? While both of these may play a role, one must realize that species tend to gravitate towards other species of
et al). We hypothesize that there will be significant differences in the presence and/or functionality of the claudin-5 protein in the brain blood vessel endothelium of SIV-positive versus healthy control primate brain samples. Using SIV-infected macaque brain tissue samples, immunohistochemical analysis was
stress, but few of us know how it affects us.” In the film “Stress- Portrait of a Killer” by National Geographic, Robert Sapolsky is researching baboon’s to find a link in stress and potential health risks in humans, Carol Shively is also researching macaques for that reason. Sapolsky is an american neuroendocrinologist that went to Africa “on a hunch” to study non-human subjects to test his theory, this experiment actually got Robert Sapolsky “MacArthur Foundations Genius Fellowship”. He did this by
Visual Perception Any one given experience an organism perceives must incorporate several sensory systems, that involves numerous number of organs , that further more are comprised of millions upon millions of firing cells. Perception is not a direct mirroring of stimulus, but a complex chaotic patterns dependent on the simultaneously activity of neurons. This essay deals primarily with neurons from the optical sensory system. The outer ridge of the brain, known as the cerebral cortex begins