More lessons from nature...

[kickaha]

1) We're really not that unique. We *are* just hairless chimps.

2) The myth of 'gentle nature' or 'we should live in peace, like the animals' is blown out of the water. Again.

3) Nature's a bitch.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11234?DCMP=Matt_Sparkes&nsref=tools

Synopsis: chimps found in wild using sharpened sticks (ie, spears) to stab, kill, and extract bushbabies (lower primates) from hiding places, to eat them.

Comments

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Usedta be, folks thought chimps had learned their tool-using behaviors by watching humans who lived in the same areas, but this:

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/212/1

suggests that maybe chimps are working their way through their very own Paleolithic era. Which suggests to me that if we finally do ourselves in, it won't be very long before there's another primate race taking over, building civilizations and downloading porn from the ChimperNet. Particularly if our demise involves raising the planetary radiation level, and thus increasing the mutation rate of surviving species.

Maybe they'll get it right. And if not, maybe the bushbabies can do so, after thousands of years evolving the ability to not get stabbed in their sleep.

[flinx.livejournal.com]

CHIMPOCALYPSE!

(or at least, that was my first thought when I caught that on BBC News today)

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

You mean "CHIMPOKEALYPSE", right?

[spkorb.livejournal.com]

I, for one, welcome our new giant chimpanzee overlords.

Strange, but this new information is of great comfort to me.