Good morning.
It’s a partly cloudy day in store for Whitewater, with a high temperature of fifty-eight. It’s the first day of fall, and growing a bit darker each each day, with recent days having about two minutes less daylight than the previous ones.
Comment Forum’s off this weekend, but back next Friday. For this weekend, a post featuring a musical premiere, among others.
I’ve warned readers before about the dangers of chimpanzees, and there’s yet more evidence of how truly rotten they are: Unlike Humans, Chimpanzees Don’t Enjoy Collaborating. Forget all those silly videos where they ride tricycles, or wear a coat and tie – they’re not only violent, they’re even uncooperative with their own kind:
When it benefits them, chimpanzees willingly work together. Otherwise, they can’t be bothered. For humans, collaboration is rewarding for its own sake, a behavioral split that may underlie key differences between human and chimpanzee societies. Primate researchers, working with semi-free ranging chimpanzees at a sanctuary in Uganda, found chimpanzees recruit a helping partner only if it gets them more food than they’d get alone. The study, described in Animal Behavior, Sept. 7, is part of a current trend in primatology to unpick how motivation and mental state affects an animal’s interactions.
For more on chimpanzees’ many dangers, see my earlier post, Chimpanzees: Cuddly Primates or Vicious Killers? Vicious Killers!