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Tag: "zoo"

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What if there weren’t any other living great apes?
By Erich Vieth on October 26th, 2009

What if there weren’t any other living great apes?

During my recent visit to the St. Louis Zoo, I wondered how it would have been had humans been the only species of great ape still alive on the planet.

I suspect that there would have been quite a few preachers out there suggesting that the animals represented by the fossils of other species of great apes were not at all similar to humans. I can imagine them preaching with great confidence that there wasn’t any credible evidence that any other living animal was ever remotely similar to humans in physical appearance or facial expressions, regardless of the fossils.

Image by Erich Vieth

They would call it laughable to suggest that any other species of great ape was a tool user, or that any other species of great ape exhibited emotions akin to those displayed by humans. And they would have argued without any doubt that it was silly to suggest that communities of the other great apes would have ever exhibited such things as reconciliation, empathy and proto-morality.

Human animals • nature • photography
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Orangutan trying on a t-shirt
By Erich Vieth on October 18th, 2009

Orangutan trying on a t-shirt

While visiting the St. Louis Zoo today I photographed a young orangutan trying on a t-shirt. It was a delightful display, though not unexpected, given the long-documented tool-use of orangs:

Many wild orangutans have developed an amazing ability to use tools to help them exploit what food they can find. They’ve been observed using probes like twigs to extract insects and honey from tree orang-1trunks (held in their hands or their teeth), as well as blunt tools to scrape seeds from spiny fruit cases.

In addition to food-gathering tools, wild orangutans have been observed making tools to scratch themselves, fashioning leafy branches into “umbrellas” to shelter themselves from sun and rain, and using branches as swatters to repel bees or wasps that are attacking. Many have also been seen using “leaf gloves” to handle prickly fruits or branches, or creating “seat cushions” to sit comfortably in thorny trees.

Tool use hasn’t been observed in all orangutan populations, and it shows great variations even when itorang-2 exists. This suggests to scientists that tool use is the result of innovation and learning that’s passed on from one generation to the next – one of the hallmarks of culture.

orang-3

[More photos . . . ]

nature
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October in Washington Park, Portland Oregon
By Erich Vieth on October 25th, 2008

October in Washington Park, Portland Oregon

I’m in Portland Oregon this weekend for a consumer law conference. I did have a chance to walk through Washington Park this afternoon, and I wanted to share a few photos. Washington Park is a few miles from downtown Portland, Oregon. Though the first photo was taken at the Portland Zoo, [...]

photography
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Langurs fighting and then reconciling
By Erich Vieth on May 25th, 2008

Langurs fighting and then reconciling

Today, my daughters and I had the opportunity to observe two male langurs fighting and then reconciling at the St. Louis Zoo today. First of all, here’s the fight (this is the tale end of a rough play session that turned noticeably unpleasant–the entire episode lasted about 3 minutes):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfilzJkHtBo[/youtube]
About 2 minutes after these [...]

Friendships/relationships • Sex • Videos
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Where are the wild Tigers? The danger of our obliviousness to incrementalism.
By Erich Vieth on January 31st, 2008

Where are the wild Tigers? The danger of our obliviousness to incrementalism.

In the February 2008 edition of Natural History Magazine (article not available online), you can learn where tigers still live in the wild.  At the beginning of the 20th century, there were 100,000 tigers living in the wild.  Today, there are only 5000 in the wild.  Tigers now inhabit only 7% of their original territory, [...]

American Culture • Psychology Cognition
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Photo of Orangutan
By Erich Vieth on April 02nd, 2007

Photo of Orangutan

I photographed this older orangutan yesterday at the St. Louis Zoo.  He had moved slowly to this spot about 50 feet away from the glass, where he paused for several minutes and stared back at the humans who were staring at him.
I was pondering whether this photo needed a caption, but I decided simply to post it [...]

Science • Uncategorized • photography
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