Most were snatched from the wild as infants, and some bred in a laboratory, and used in medical experiments. Their reactions as they venture into the outside world clearly show that chimps are sentient, emotional beings.

It’s well worth visiting the sanctuary’s website for great photos of the chimps and their individual stories.  How fantastic that these chimps finally have a life worth living!

Once a forager has found pollen or nectar they will return to the hive and perform an elaborate dance on the vertical surface of a honey comb. Karl von Frisch discovered that bees use this dance to communicate the location of food to others in their hive. If the food is relatively far from the hive (as it generally is) the bee will perform a “waggle dance” to communicate two items of information – the distance to and the direction of the food source.

A bee that performs a waggle dance moves in a figure of eight. She waggles her body from side to side and emits a buzzing sound as she moves forward in a straight line, then circles to the right, back to her starting point, waggles ahead again, and then circles to the left and waggles again. This pattern is repeated a number of times.

The duration of the straight run, or “waggle,” tells the other bees how far the nectar or pollen is from the hive. As the distance to the food source increases, the duration of the waggle also increases.

The direction in which the dancing bee faces during the straight portion of her waggle dance indicates the location of the food source in relation to the sun. For example, if the flowers are located 30 degrees to the right of the sun, the dance will be oriented 30 degrees to the right of vertical.

The waggle dance acts as a form of language – the other foragers watch the dancing bee’s movements and receive information about how to get to the food source. They also receive information about what is to be found at the food source through their sense of smell.

How a worker bee communicates the location of food source to other bees in the hive may be one of the most complex forms of social behaviour seen outside of the human race.

Here’s a great video about these amazing bees.

Sources:
Frisch, K.V., (1967). The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press

Gould, J.L., and Gould, C.G., (1988). The Honey Bee. New York: Scientific American Library, W.H. Freeman

The humpback whale was on the migratory route around the California coast when she became terribly entangled in crab trap lines. Her life was at great risk.
She was tangled up in weighted ropes up to 240 feet long around her tail, her flipper and even in her mouth. The ropes were so tight they cut into her blubber and caused visible wounds. She was completely helpless  and the weight of the traps was causing her to struggle to keep her blow hole out of the sea.

A rescue team of divers went out to her but she was in such a state  they were  unsure that they stood any chance of saving her. They were at risk themselves, as the flick of a humpback’s tail can kill a human.

But they reported that as they worked to free the unfortunate creature, she did not struggle at all and they were aware of her eyes simply following them around as they worked.

Thankfully, the rescuers were successful but must have been astonished by the whale’s heartwarming response. When she felt herself come free, she began to swim around in circles and then went up to each diver one by one and nudged them. One of the rescuers is reported as saying: “It seemed kind of affectionate, like a dog that’s happy to see you … I never felt threatened. It was an amazing, unbelievable experience.”

Her response makes us think about the common ground that humans can have with animals who might appear so very different from us. A whale-watching expert who helped co-ordinate the rescue is quoted as saying: “You hate to anthropomorphize too much  but the whale was doing little dives and the guys were rubbing shoulders with it … I don’t know for sure what it was thinking, but it’s something that I will always remember. It was just too cool.”

An interesting point about our understanding of these large sea mammals was made by Gould and Gould in their book ‘The Animal Mind’. They suggest that perhaps we have been quicker to appreciate the intelligence and sentience of primates as they are so much more similar to us in their gestures and experiences, and therefore easier for us to read. We may have been slower to understand the complexity and richness of underwater creatures simply because they appear to be so very different to us.

Humpback Whale

Sources:
San Francisco Chronice (14/12/05). Daring rescue of whale off Farallones. Accessed 17/12/09.

Gould, J. L. and Gould, C. G. (1994) The Animal Mind. Scientific American Library, New York.

The grandmother saw what was happening and stepped in to help, even producing milk for the youngster. From then on she took it in turns with the mother to care for the kid, being there to support the mother goat and also ensure the kid had plenty of food.

Across the generations

Another example of grandmothers helping out was in the news last week. Researchers in Japan had been observing free-ranging macaque family groups when they noticed some interesting situations. A grandmother macaque took over the care of her grandchild when the mother disappeared; carrying, grooming and allowing her to suckle,  although the researchers believe she didn’t produce any milk. Perhaps letting the baby macaque suckle may have been an act of reassurance for the youngster.

When the mother returned after a period of time (believed to be 6-14 days) she resumed her duties in caring for the youngster.  Another grandmother was witnessed ‘sharing care’ with a struggling mother, and this time was believed to be producing milk as well.

A key feature in all of these stories is the fact that the grandmother was prepared to get involved quickly if needed, but was not overly possessive of the youngster. In both cases they seemed happy to share care with the mother, or hand the infant back when their job was done. This shows sensitivity to the needs of the situation, and more flexible thinking than if they were to simply ‘take over’ an abandoned youngster.

Sources:
BBC News – Grandmother Monkeys care for baby

Nakamichi, M., Onishi, K. and Yamada, K. (2009) Old grandmothers provide essential care to their young granddaughters in a free-ranging group of Japanese monkeys (Macaca fuscata)Primates, Online first. 10.1007/s10329-009-0177-7

Clever Hans

At the time, people thought he was working out the maths himself, and were disappointed to learn that he was reading their body language instead. But the fact that Hans could answer the questions by this method is in itself amazing. He was seeing small changes in the behaviour of his questioners which people did not see – and it took an extensive experiment for us to find out what Hans knew all along.

Other animals are also more tuned in to us than we might expect. In a previous post about Sociable sheep we found out that sheep preferred the faces of smiling people rather than stressed or angry people.

This leads us to consider, how much do animals really know about what we’re thinking?

Sources:
Clever Hans (BBC website)
McGreevy (2004) Equine Behaviour: A Guide for Veterinarians and Equine Scientists.

Team players. Image courtesy of Tim Vickers

Source:
Drea, C. M., Carter, A. N. (2009)
Co-operative problem solving in a social carnivore
Animal Behaviour, 78: 967-977.

This helping is not just reserved for other chimps too – in a previous study by Warneken, chimps were also witnessed helping humans in a similar task and handing a stick to them on request. Videos of both of these experiments can be found below.

Chimp helps human- scroll down the page, and play the first video in the list.

Sources:
Yamamoto, S., Humle, T.,Tanaka, M. (2009)
Chimpanzees Help Each Other upon Request
PLoS ONE, 4(10): e7416

Warneken, F., Hare, B., Melis, A. P., Hanus, D., Tomasello, M.
Spontaneous Altruism by Chimpanzees and Young Children
PLoS Biol 5(7): e184

Socialising in the village square. (c) Compassion in World Farming/Chi Keung Wong

Pigs are very chatty, communicating with grunts, squeals, snarls and snorts, champing their jaws and clacking their teeth. Sows have a special call for their piglets when it’s time for the piglets to suckle. Sows and piglets keep contact with each other and with their mother by squeals and grunts. If piglets are separated from Mum, they squeal for her. Scientists found that sows responded more strongly to the desperate squeals from cold, hungry piglets than they did  to calls from larger, more well-fed piglets.

Animals can also understand each other’s language. For example, some animals can understand the meaning of another’s alarm call.

Dogs and humans have a long history of living together. While dogs are often quick are picking up what humans are saying – perhaps by the tone of voice rather than by all the actual words – we humans often seem to struggle to understand dog ‘bark language.’ In this really interesting video, courtesy of the social networking site Petstreet ,  dog communication expert John Rogerson helps us decipher what our furry friends are wanting to tell us.

According to reports, “Mila had spotted her difficulties and using her sensitive dolphin-like nose guided Yun safely to the surface.”

One of the staff is quoted as saying: “Mila noticed the problem before we did. She’s a sensitive animal who works closely with humans and I think this girl owes her her life.”

Belugas are very social and because they are so chatty, they are also known as sea canaries. When you have to swim great distances under ice in the Arctic Sea, it helps to be a good communicator so you can keep up with your pod and let each other know what’s going on. Sadly, beluga whales are yet another threatened species.

See National Geographic for an interesting film clip about beluga life.

The Daily Mail reports that Bonnie leads Clyde “to food or water, and lets him rest his head on her haunches when he feels a bit lost. They are inseparable, and if Bonnie isn’t nearby Clyde refuses to move a paw.”

Bonnie and Clyde were rescued as strays recently. It appears they were lost in a storm and no-one has come forward for them. Obviously these two have a vital bond and they must be rehomed together.