5 Painfully Accurate Human Behaviors In The Primate World
Human beings have technology, politics, art; monkeys fling poo. Clearly, they're doing something right, and we're doing something wrong. And yet those poor simian sons of bitches are mistakenly following in our footsteps right now: archaeologists in Thailand investigated a community of macaques who developed stone tools to break open shellfish. In the nearby jungles and rainforests, chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys have been doing the same thing to crack open nuts. Now, to be clear, the animals aren't just seeing a rock and deciding to fuck something up with it -- they're learning from experience and passing down knowledge, which is just another way of saying they have technology. Which is just another way of saying they'll soon have unsatisfying jobs in IT and erectile dysfunction. See, it turns out monkeys are just as screwed up as we are, and in some remarkably similar ways ...
Apes Suffer From Mid-Life Crises
We find one gray hair, and suddenly our brain says it's time to buy an expensive sports car and research new types of slang. Mid-life crises are stupid, but we're not alone in having them: Primates are practically guaranteed to feel more depressed, bored, confused, and introspective during the middle section of their lives, regardless of species or volume of body hair. According to researchers, chimps and orangutans' dissatisfaction with their lives tends to occur just after the midpoint of their lifespan -- at 30 years old, give or take. Only about a decade removed from our own designated hairpiece period.
You can barely tell it's fake.
Alexander Weiss, the co-author of the study, adds that the 500 middle-aged apes they studied aggressively went after "things that they want, like mating with more females, or gaining access to more resources" to compensate for the void in their sad, unrewarding, monkey life.
"I should buy a Ferrari."
Weiss theorizes that the unhappiness amongst primates is likely a common evolutionary mechanism: a kind of ticking time bomb of insecurity that amps up their unfulfilled sex drive, makes them hoard resources, and causes them to fight to enhance their rank within the group, all in the simple pursuit of elevating their reproductive chances before it's too late. If that sounds painfully familiar, maybe get off the phone with the Harley dealership and just surf Urban Dictionary for a while instead. It's cheaper.
Orangutans Hire Hitmen
In 2016, scientists observed what is probably the first known contract killing outside of the human species. It happened in Borneo, when a female orangutan named Kondor "hired" a male named Ekko to eliminate a rival female, Sidony. These were, of course, names that the researchers gave them -- the orangutans did not tell them their names. They're dumb animals, and also they know what happens to snitches.
"Except we don't even know how to stitch them back up."
Orangutans are particularly docile as far as apes go, so it's safe to say that Sidony did something to piss Kondor off right proper. The scheme began when Kondor called Ekko over, which was curious in itself, because orangutans of the opposite sex rarely associate outside of mating season. Later, Ekko was seen spying on Sidony, before returning to Kondor, with whom he immediately started having a lot of hot ape sex.
After that, Ekko confronted Sidony and promptly mauled her to death, before returning to Kondor and having some more hot ape sex.
"She did things with her feet, man. Banana things."
Yes, you are correct: That was Kim Basinger's sideplot from Wayne's World 2. A thousand monkeys working at a thousand typewriters for a thousand years might not write Hamlet, but apparently they can nail down an SNL spin-off in an afternoon.
Monkeys Get Sick Of The Next Generation And "Retire"
Once you hit 65, boom -- you're out of here. Time to hike up the pants and start shuffling boards: you've earned retirement. And you're not the only one. Scientists have discovered that monkey species go through a similar process, where they lose interest in trying to understand the culture of younger monkeys and withdraw into a more solitary life.
"In my day, movies about us didn't use any of that 'motion capture' nonsense."
In a study of around 100 Barbary macaque monkeys in southern France, researchers discovered that as soon as the animals hit 20 (roughly their retirement age), they stopped making new friends and started forging closer connections with the ones they already had, kind of the macaque equivalent of moving to a retirement community. We figured retirement was a uniquely human concept: Both to allow the elderly free time to enjoy their twilight years, as well keep them off our roads, but apparently it's hardwired into some species. We hope there's a monkey version of Golden Corral close by.
"I can't even fling my poop anymore because of arthritis."
Male Chimps Send Their Version Of The "Dick Pic"
Seduction is an art, a delicate dance, a carefully crafted display of value, designed to win the heart of your one special mate in the world. So obviously, for a male, the best way to accomplish that is with an unsolicited dick pic.
What? It's practically natural law.
"U up?"
Even chimpanzees have their own version of this tradition: though they lack the technology to take a photo of their junk (so far), they do have other ways of drawing a female's attention to the only real point they have. Male chimpanzees, when aroused and looking for some action, will sit with their legs apart and their erection on proud display. If the female takes too long to smell what the Rock is cooking, then the male will begin scrunching up dead leaves in his crotch area, in the hope that the sound will draw her attention to the gentleman's club. It truly is an unsolicited dick pic in all but name. So go ahead and wing a wang her way: surely using the same seduction tactics as a horny monkey will work out for you.
But only if you look this good.
Apes Develop Alcohol Problems At The Same Rate As Humans
One of the first things humanity did when we came down from the trees was to gather the fruit from those trees, ferment it, and get blitzed off of it. Once again, we're not special snowflakes: Chimps use specially designed sponges to sop up fermented sap and get hammered on it. They not only drink; they have a favorite mug.
"Shit, where'd I leave my car? Oh, wait, I'm a chimp."
Primates have known about fermented drinks practically forever, and they're not lightweights: Chimps in Guinea have been witnessed guzzling down fermented palm sap with an alcohol content near 7 percent. That's like a fine stout, or roughly twenty PBRs. Even more interesting: The percentage of primates that seek out alcohol and regularly overindulge is roughly equivalent to that of human alcoholics. That means our Troubled Uncle Ty wasn't just bullshitting his parole officer; there probably is some sort of genetic component to alcoholism. The apes prove it. That's what he was shouting as they dragged him away, and it only just now makes sense.
Their only difference is that they can't draw dicks on each other when passed out.
Also check out 6 Animals That Get High More Than Humanity's Biggest Stoners and 5 Eerily Familiar Things Animals Do When They're Drunk.
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