Birth of UK's Only Bonobo Baby Gives Fresh Hope for World's Most Endangered Ape

credit – Adam Kay, Twycross Zoo / SWNS

Conservationists and zookeepers are celebrating our closest living relative giving birth to a healthy baby.

Heart-tugging photos show the bonobo mother Yuli cradling her tiny newborn after it was born at Twycross Zoo in Leicestershire last Thursday.

Experts have hailed the birth as a ‘globally significant’ moment which could help save one of the world’s rarest apes and humanity’s cousin.


Twycross Zoo is the only UK zoo to care for the species, and says the new arrival has the distinguished status as the only baby bonobo in the whole country.

The infant’s mother Yuli arrived at Twycross Zoo from Vallée Des Singes in France as part of the European-led conservation program in 2023.

“Bonobos are human’s closest living relatives, yet they remain one of the most endangered and least understood apes on Earth,” said Dr. Rebecca Biddle, chief conservation officer at Twycross Zoo. “Every birth is a true milestone and a powerful reminder of what can be achieved when zoos work together.

“As the only UK zoo caring for bonobos, here at Twycross Zoo, we are immensely proud and feel a great responsibility to play our part in protecting this incredible species,” she added.

credit – Adam Kay, Twycross Zoo / SWNS

Bonobos, which are listed as “Endangered” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, are indeed as Biddle says—Homo sapiens’ closest living relatives, sharing more than 98% of our DNA.

In the wild, their population is said to be decreasing due to many human-caused threats such as poaching and deforestation.

Found only in the wilds of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the bonobo is a highly unique ape due to their matriarchal society. Typically, primate troops are led by a dominant male, but bonobos are one of few primate species, and the only great ape, to live in female-led societies.

The conservation program looks after 10% of all the bonobos in Europe, and is a key part of a collaborative effort between EAZA (European Association of Zoos and Aquaria) member zoos.At the moment, neither mother nor newborn will be visible to the public as they enjoy a critical period of bonding and nurturing. Birth of UK's Only Bonobo Baby Gives Fresh Hope for World's Most Endangered Ape
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Rarest Monkeys Now Number Close to 2,000 Thanks to One Man's Jane Goodall-like Passion

A golden snub-nosed monkey in Tanjiahe National Nature Reserve, Sichuan Province – credit, David Blank CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

From the BBC comes the story of an intrepid and dedicated scientist who has spent decades working in China’s mountain forests in an effort to protect and understand one of the nation’s most amazing animals.

The golden sub-nosed monkey is revered alongside the giant panda as “national treasures” of Chinese wildlife, yet this couldn’t protect them from logging and hunting that followed in the wake of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Members of this sub-species located in the UNESCO-listed Shennongjia mountains of Hubei Province, were the subject of intense study by Professor Yang Jingyuan, a research ecologist who arrived in these mountains in 1991.

For Yang, the golden sub-nosed monkey was Jane Goodall’s chimpanzees. By the time Yang arrived in Shennongjia, the population had collapsed to just 500 or so individuals across 6 family groups. Years of illegal logging as a form of subsistence living had reduced forest coverage in the mountains to 63%.

But before Yang could protect the animals, he had to first learn to understand them. With his research colleagues, he began striking out into the newly-created Shennongjia Forest Reserve to study these incredible animals.

The monkeys were at first so wary of humans that Yang and his team had to stay half a mile away to be able just to observe the monkeys in their habitat. Eventually though, with repeated encounters, half a mile became and quarter mile, and a quarter mile became 200 yards, 100 yards, 20 yards—until Yang and whoever he brought with him were accepted by the troupes.

The BBC’s China Correspondent, Stephen McDonell, experienced this treatment as baby monkeys and curious juveniles climbed all over him on a visit to special, 100 square kilometer monkey zones hat are off-limits to the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to enjoy a mountain ecosystem that is without exaggeration unique in the world.

“Even after logging was banned there were still people illegally felling timber. If they didn’t cut down trees, how would they have money?” Professor Yang, director of the Shennongjia National Park Scientific Research Institute, told McDonell.

Golden snub-nosed monkeys in Tanjiahe National Nature Reserve, Sichuan Province – credit, David Blank CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

Shennongjia virgin forest – credit, Evilbish CC BY-SA 3.0

“There were also people secretly hunting here to survive. It was only after a long period of building awareness that the consciousness of local farmers changed.”

In the 1990s, with a shifting focus from forestry to forest conservation, local residents eking out this subsistence living were offered government money to relocate so that the forests could regrow. Many accepted the offer, and now benefit from the tourism boom the mountains are experiencing.

There is no place on Earth that has greater biodiversity of deciduous woody plants than Shennongjia, and a dizzying 3,400 higher-order plant species, and over 600 invertebrates have been recorded there. The golden snub-nosed monkey is very much a fuzzy golden cherry on top of a biodiverse cake ten layers-high.

“I’m very optimistic,” said Prof Yang. “Their home is now very well protected. They have food and drink, no worries about life’s necessities and, most of all, their numbers are growing.”

Golden snub-nosed monkeys captured via camera trap – credit, eMammal CC 2.0. via Flickr

Indeed, an archived report from Xinhua claimed that those 500 remnant individuals became 1,200 by 2013. This represents major progress since females give birth to only one baby at a time.

At the time McDonell visited, their numbers had jumped again to 1,600, and forest cover along the hills and valleys had increased to around 96% of the reserve’s total area.

Professor Yang can live freely among them like some character of fable. He speaks to them in their calls, having learned the meanings of each vocalization during his many years of observing them.

Like Goodall, his research has yielded incredible insights into their lives. For example, each monkey has an egg timer-like understanding of its lifespan, and when it’s time to pass away, they silently leave their families behind and visit special, secluded areas to die alone in the forest.

According to Yang, there hasn’t been a single successful attempt to find these sites, either by researchers or rangers.Yang’s institute estimates that the monkeys will come to number 2,000 individuals in Shennongjia sometime over the next 10 years, a testament to the magnificent outcomes conservation can provide, providing there’s someone in the right place at the right time to make the effort to make a difference. Rarest Monkeys Now Number Close to 2,000 Thanks to One Man's Jane Goodall-like Passion
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Chimps are upping their tool game, says study


WASHINGTON - "Planet of the Apes" may have been onto something.

Chimpanzees are steadily honing their tool-using skills -- a process unfolding over millennia, driven by the exchange of ideas through migrations between populations, according to a new study published Thursday in Science.

The finding in chimps -- humans' closest living relatives -- holds relevance for us too, as it supports the idea that, deep in the mists of time, our own ape ancestors leveraged social connections to improve their technologies, lead author Cassandra Gunasekaram told AFP.

Scientists have long marvelled at chimps' ability to pass down intricate behaviours, like tool use, from one generation to the next.

Yet while human civilisation has leapt from the Stone Age to the Space Age, chimpanzee "culture" -- defined as socially learned behaviours -- seemed to have remained static.

Gunasekaram, a doctoral student at the University of Zurich, set out to challenge this assumption.

She and colleagues combined genetic data tracing ancient chimpanzee migrations across Africa with observations of 15 distinct foraging behaviours across dozens of populations and the four subspecies.

These behaviours were categorised into three levels: those requiring no tools, those with simple tools, like using chewed leaves as a sponge to absorb water from tree holes, and the most complex, which involve toolsets.

One striking example of toolset use comes from Congo, where chimps use a stout stick to bore a tunnel into the ground to reach a termite nest, then modify a plant stem by chewing its tip into a brush to "fish" for termites in the tunnel they've made.

The study found that advanced tool use strongly correlated with populations connected by genetic exchanges over the last 5,000–15,000 years, suggesting such behaviours spread when groups interacted.

Areas where three subspecies overlap exhibited the most complex tool use, highlighting how cross-group connections foster cultural knowledge.

By contrast, simpler behaviours, such as foraging without tools, seemed less tied to migration and likely evolved independently in different regions.

- Foraging efficiently -

Gunasekaram said this mirrors how trading ideas and incremental innovation have been critical to human technological progress, taking us from early abacuses to modern smartphones.

"They've become so complex that one person alone could not reinvent them from scratch," she said.

But unlike humans, chimps have far fewer opportunities to encounter new individuals and ideas -- migrations occur gradually, driven by sexually mature females moving to new communities to avoid inbreeding.

Analysing ancient genetic flows helped the team overcome one of the biggest challenges in studying the evolution of chimpanzee culture: the limited window of observation, as the species has only been researched scientifically for about a century.

What's more, "Chimpanzee tools are made of sticks and stems, which are all perishable," Gunasekaram explained, making it nearly impossible to trace how their artefacts have evolved over time.

So, will chimps one day rival human ingenuity? Hardly. But given enough time, they could become more efficient foragers.

For example, some populations are already more advanced in cracking nuts with hammers and anvils made of stone , and one particularly innovative group has even invented a stabiliser for the anvil, said Gunasekaram.by Issam Ahmed Chimps are upping their tool game, says study
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Cameroon islands offer safe home for orphaned chimps


MARIENBERG - Adolescent chimps are, in some respects, rather similar to their human counterparts.

They live with mum until well into their teens, are sometimes a bit cheeky and, being highly social animals, struggle to survive alone until they have been taught how to fend for themselves.

So when poachers kill mother chimps for food, keep the young chained in captivity for the exotic pet trade, or the family group is destroyed when its forest home is cleared for commercial palm oil plantations, the orphaned chimps need help.

In Cameroon, the NGO Papaye International runs a sanctuary for the endangered animals on three islands in the Douala-Edea national park.

"The chimpanzees in the sanctuary are chimpanzees that have had a tragic past due to poaching, deforestation and groups that have been killed," said Marylin Pons Riffet, the 57-year-old French head of the charity.

AFP | Daniel Beloumou Olomo

"We only take in orphaned chimpanzees, who are young and therefore need the helping hand of man after having had a gun pointed at them or their habitat destroyed," she told AFP.

The charity helps the orphans become re-accustomed to surviving in semi-wild conditions, but on islands away from their only predator -- the humans with whom they share 98 percent of their DNA and a good degree of behaviour.

Populations of common chimpanzees, which used to roam across 26 countries in equatorial Africa, have plummeted since the 1980s, and they are at risk of extinction in the wild.

- We are family -

Fabrice Moudoungue, a 39-year-old carer, travels by boat every day to bring food to the three rainforest-covered islands on the Sanaga river where Papaye International's 34 chimps live

"Here Water Lily! Here Star!" he calls.

The chimps, who recognise his voice, scamper excitedly along the bank of Yakonzo-Okokong Island towards the boat and hug him when he wades out to offer them bananas, coconut, tomatoes and dates.

AFP | Daniel Beloumou Olomo

"They're not 'like' my family. They 'are' my family because we spend all the time, every day, with them," he said with a smile.

Chimps are usually fearful of humans and can be aggressive when scared, especially if they have been mistreated in captivity in the past.

But through daily, gentle contact, Moudoungue and his colleagues at the sanctuary have earned their trust.

"These are young ones that we released about four to five years ago. We visit them all the time to keep contact, so that in case one of them gets sick they will still accept us," said manager Francois Elimbi.

When he reaches Yatou Island, Honey wraps him in her long black arms.

The mature female chimp was released there in 2019 after needing almost 10 years of care at the sanctuary.

"It's inexplicable, very powerful. It even gives you goosepimples when a monkey hugs you. That means he still recognises you. You're his friend," Elimbi said.

- Special bond -

Tchossa and Conso are still too young and inexperienced to be released onto the islands.

They have a big cage near the carers' lodgings on Yatou where they play on their swings and sleep in hammocks, awaiting their daily walk with the staff to rediscover the forest.

Alioum Sanda, 67, has a special bond with Conso.

"He has the marks of the shackles because after the poachers killed his mother, the little one didn't trust them so they shackled him," he said, pointing to the scars on the chimp's body.

He recalled how Conso had changed since his arrival at the sanctuary.

"He was very aggressive considering the mistreatment he'd received when he was in Douala. It took at least two months before he gave me his trust," Sanda recalled.

"I would put nappies on him. I would wipe his wounds."

Conso, now fully recovered, started dancing around, sensing it was nearly time for his daily outing.

Sanda took his bony hand.

"If we don't do what we are doing, they will disappear," he said softly.

“We'll just say then that there used to be an animal called a chimpanzee. We must try to preserve them so that future generations -- our grandchildren -- can see them too." The information contained in the article posted represents the views and opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of eNCA.com. Cameroon islands offer safe home for orphaned chimps
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Gorillas Use Chest Beating to Prevent Conflict, Not Provoke it, a New Study Finds

Male gorilla – credit Kabir Bakie at the Cincinnati Zoo CC 2.5.

A gorilla’s chest beating is an incredible sight, and sound, to behold, but new research based on years of observation of mountain gorillas shows there’s much we never understood about this iconic acoustic.

Since people first went to see King Kong, or since gamers first met Donkey Kong from the Mario Bros franchise, most might say male gorillas beats their chests with their fists, and as a sign of challenge or triumph.

Apart from the fact that they use cupped hands, it seems to serve a number of functions—a challenge not necessarily being one of them.


Edward Wright, a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute, spent between 2014 and 2016 observing 500 chest beats from 25 different silverback mountain gorillas in Rwanda’s national parks.

Using acousitc monitoring equipment he and his colleagues determined that the chest thumping was an honest demonstration of body size. This hints at several organizational aspects of gorilla social life. The first is that larger animals were recorded at lower frequencies which could travel half a mile.


By beating their chests, air sacks underneath their larynx reverberate from the kinetic energy, producing a sound, and the bigger the male, the deeper the sound. This is believed to broadcast how big and dominant a male gorilla is as a means of keeping rival males away from their social group.

Furthermore, it’s believed that each thump may act as a calling card, with members of a dominant male’s group being able to identify the silverback from this sound.


The second aspect was that while sound depth and body size were correlated, body size and frequency of chest thumping instances did not—the dominant males didn’t pound their chest any more than their smaller rivals. This presented Dr. Wright and his colleagues with a fascinating suggestion—the chest thumping is used difuse fights, rather than provoking them.


Along with smaller males hearing the chest thumps of a dominant male and knowing to steer clear, by returning the sound with their own puny chest thumps, they can alert the dominant male to their presence while simultanously demonstrating they’re no match physically due to the higher frequency of their thumping sounds.


“Even if you’re likely to win a fight, there is still quite a high-risk factor,” Dr. Wright told National Geographic. “These are large, powerful animals that can do a lot of damage.”

How the chest thumps affect the female half of gorilla society is even less well-studied, but the scientists knew at the initiation of their observations that males beat their chest more when the females in their social group enter esterus, and that larger males make deeper calls which were both found to correlate to reproductive success.Future studies will examine whether a large male’s chest beating can act as a siren’s song as it were, and pull females away from other social groups.Gorillas Use Chest Beating to Prevent Conflict, Not Provoke it, a New Study Finds
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Chimps are upping their tool game, says study


WASHINGTON - "Planet of the Apes" may have been onto something.

Chimpanzees are steadily honing their tool-using skills -- a process unfolding over millennia, driven by the exchange of ideas through migrations between populations, according to a new study published Thursday in Science.

The finding in chimps -- humans' closest living relatives -- holds relevance for us too, as it supports the idea that, deep in the mists of time, our own ape ancestors leveraged social connections to improve their technologies, lead author Cassandra Gunasekaram told AFP.

Scientists have long marvelled at chimps' ability to pass down intricate behaviours, like tool use, from one generation to the next.

Yet while human civilisation has leapt from the Stone Age to the Space Age, chimpanzee "culture" -- defined as socially learned behaviours -- seemed to have remained static.

Gunasekaram, a doctoral student at the University of Zurich, set out to challenge this assumption.

She and colleagues combined genetic data tracing ancient chimpanzee migrations across Africa with observations of 15 distinct foraging behaviours across dozens of populations and the four subspecies.

These behaviours were categorised into three levels: those requiring no tools, those with simple tools, like using chewed leaves as a sponge to absorb water from tree holes, and the most complex, which involve toolsets.

One striking example of toolset use comes from Congo, where chimps use a stout stick to bore a tunnel into the ground to reach a termite nest, then modify a plant stem by chewing its tip into a brush to "fish" for termites in the tunnel they've made.

The study found that advanced tool use strongly correlated with populations connected by genetic exchanges over the last 5,000–15,000 years, suggesting such behaviours spread when groups interacted.

Areas where three subspecies overlap exhibited the most complex tool use, highlighting how cross-group connections foster cultural knowledge.

By contrast, simpler behaviours, such as foraging without tools, seemed less tied to migration and likely evolved independently in different regions.

- Foraging efficiently -

Gunasekaram said this mirrors how trading ideas and incremental innovation have been critical to human technological progress, taking us from early abacuses to modern smartphones.

"They've become so complex that one person alone could not reinvent them from scratch," she said.

But unlike humans, chimps have far fewer opportunities to encounter new individuals and ideas -- migrations occur gradually, driven by sexually mature females moving to new communities to avoid inbreeding.

Analysing ancient genetic flows helped the team overcome one of the biggest challenges in studying the evolution of chimpanzee culture: the limited window of observation, as the species has only been researched scientifically for about a century.

What's more, "Chimpanzee tools are made of sticks and stems, which are all perishable," Gunasekaram explained, making it nearly impossible to trace how their artefacts have evolved over time.

So, will chimps one day rival human ingenuity? Hardly. But given enough time, they could become more efficient foragers.

For example, some populations are already more advanced in cracking nuts with hammers and anvils made of stone , and one particularly innovative group has even invented a stabiliser for the anvil, said Gunasekaram.by Issam Ahmed Chimps are upping their tool game, says study
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Honk! These monkeys have truly legendary noses – now we better understand why they evolved

Slavianin/Shutterstock Katharine Balolia, Australian National University

Of all the monkey species around the world, one stands out with its large, bizarre nose. In male proboscis monkeys, their bulbous noses will often hang past their mouths.

But why evolve such a strange feature? Are they a visual sign of health and status to potential female mates, and to other males? Or did they evolve to help the monkeys make honks and other loud sounds?

In our new study, published in Scientific Reports, we have deepened our understanding of these enlarged nasal structures by investigating what lies beneath: the structures in the skull.

Our findings help to explain how these noses function as visual and acoustic signals of health and status. They also add to a growing body of evidence that shows researchers can use close examinations of skulls to glean information about primate social behaviour.

A battle of noses

One of the largest monkey species in Asia, proboscis monkeys (Nasalis larvatus) are endemic to the island of Borneo. They live in coastal mangroves, peat swamps and riverine forests, and have an unusual diet made up mostly of leaves.

They can swim quite well and have webbed fingers and toes. They typically live in harem groups, made up of a single adult male (who tends to have a large, bulbous nose), some adult females and their offspring.

Males don’t often get the opportunity to attract a harem until they reach middle age. These older, dominant and large-nosed males don’t easily tolerate other large-nosed males, often trying to ward them off aggressively with deep honks and “nasal roars” – loud calls they make using their noses.

Young adult males with smaller noses often live in all-male bachelor groups, and don’t tend to fight aggressively with each other. When these bachelor males get older and become large (and large-nosed) enough to compete with males that are part of a breeding group, they are in a position to overthrow the tenured male. Females then often choose to form a harem group with this new, high-status male.

What’s behind the nose?

We investigated the size and shape of the proboscis monkey nasal cavity. That’s the bony chamber of the skull that sits behind the fleshy nose. Our goal was to find out if the size and shape of the nasal aperture – the front part of the cavity, where the fleshy nose tissue attaches – can tell us more about why these peculiar appendages evolved.

Previous research that looked at the bulbous nose in males suggests it evolved to advertise status. In our new research, we wanted to better understand how this could be the case, this time using data taken from the skull.

We used 3D surface models, downloaded from a public repository, to take size and shape measurements from 33 adult proboscis monkey skulls. We compared these with the adult skulls of king colobus monkeys, blue monkeys and crab-eating macaques, three old world monkey species.

We chose some measurements to quantify the nasal cavity, and others to quantify the nasal aperture in all the species.  We also looked at tooth wear, since older adult monkeys have more worn teeth than younger adults. That would allow us to find out if older adult males had a larger nasal aperture than younger adult males.

Better honks

If male proboscis monkeys have a different nasal cavity shape to females, and a unique shape compared to the other monkey species, it would support the idea these enhanced nasal structures – both the fleshy nose and the cavity behind it – evolved to allow for more effective honks and nasal roars.

That was indeed what we found. The shape of the male nasal cavity was low and long compared to females. This allows males to build up resonance (sound vibration) in their nasal cavities, allowing them to emit deeper and louder calls through their noses.

The nasal aperture shape was also different between the sexes. In males, it looks a bit like an eggplant, while in females it looks more like an upside-down pear. This unique opening shape in males allows for higher intensity sounds to be emitted through the nose.

The sex differences in cavity shape were also larger than what we found in other old world monkey species. This further supports the idea that the nasal cavity of male proboscis monkeys underwent an evolutionary change for the purpose of making certain sounds.

Lastly, the age. Older proboscis monkey males really do have larger nasal apertures than younger adult males, but the cavity itself didn’t increase with age. This supports the idea that the large noses act as a visual signal. It’s also consistent with the fleshy nose size increasing in middle-aged or older adult males, which we know from behavioural studies in the wild.

Our evidence from the skull allows us to better understand how nasal structures in male proboscis monkeys evolved for both acoustic and visual signalling.

The more we know about how regions of the skull function as social signals, the better chance we have of reconstructing extinct primate social behaviour using fossilised skull remains.

The author would like to acknowledge the paper’s co-author, former ANU Masters student Pippa Fitzgerald.The Conversation

Katharine Balolia, Senior Lecturer in Biological Anthropology, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Ape Treating His Wound Using Medicinal Plant is a World First for a Wild Animal

Facial wound on adult male orangutan – Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior via SWNS

Even though there is evidence of certain self-medication behaviors in animals, so far it has never been known that animals treat their wounds with healing plants. Now, biologists in Indonesia have observed this in a male Sumatran orangutan.

After sustaining a facial wound, he ate and repeatedly applied sap from a climbing plant with anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties commonly used in traditional medicine. He also covered the entire wound with the green plant mesh.

The closest relatives to humans, the great apes, are known to ingest specific plants to treat parasite infection and to rub plant material on their skin to treat sore muscles.

A chimpanzee group in Gabon was recently observed applying insects to wounds, although the efficiency of the behavior is still unknown. Wound treatment with a biologically active substance, however, has never been documented before.

Cognitive and evolutionary biologists from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, Germany—Caroline Schuppli and Isabelle Laumer—conducted the study at the Suaq Balimbing research site in Indonesia, which is a protected rainforest area home to around 150 critically endangered Sumatran orangutans.

“During daily observations of the orangutans, we noticed that a male named Rakus had sustained a facial wound, most likely during a fight with a neighboring male,” says Laumer, the first author of the study.

Three days after the injury Rakus selectively ripped off leaves from a vine with the common name Akar Kuning (Fibraurea tinctoria). He chewed on them, and then repeatedly applied the resulting juice precisely onto the facial wound for several minutes. As a last step, he fully covered the wound with the chewed leaves.

“This and related liana species that can be found in tropical forests of Southeast Asia are known for their analgesic and antipyretic effects and are used in traditional medicine to treat various diseases, such as malaria.

“Analyses of plant chemical compounds show the presence of furanoditerpenoids and protoberberine alkaloids, which are known to have antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, antioxidant, and other biological activities of relevance to wound healing.”

Observations over the following days did not show any signs of the wound becoming infected and after five days the wound was already closed.Rakus, 47 days after first treating the wound using the medicinal plant – Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior via SWNS

“Interestingly, Rakus also rested more than usual when being wounded. Sleep positively affects wound healing as growth hormone release, protein synthesis and cell division are increased during sleep,” she explained.

Like all self-medication behavior in non-human animals, the case reported in this study raises questions about how intentional these behaviors are and how they emerge.

“The behavior of Rakus appeared to be intentional as he selectively treated his facial wound on his right flange, and no other body parts, with the plant juice. The behavior was also repeated several times, not only with the plant juice but also later with more solid plant material until the wound was fully covered. The entire process took a considerable amount of time,” says Laumer.

“It is possible, that wound treatment with Fibraurea tinctoria by the orangutans at Suaq emerges through individual innovation,” said Schuppli, a senior author of the study published in Nature. “Orangutans at the site rarely eat the plant. However, individuals may accidentally touch their wounds while feeding on this plant and thus unintentionally apply the plant’s juice to their wounds. As Fibraurea tinctoria has potent analgesic effects, individuals may feel an immediate pain release, causing them to repeat the behavior several times.”

Since the behavior has not been observed before, it may be that wound treatment with Fibraurea tinctoria has so far been absent in the behavioral repertoire of the Suaq orangutan population. Like all adult males in the area, Rakus was not born in Suaq, and his origin is unknown.

“Orangutan males disperse from their natal area during or after puberty over long distances to either establish a new home range in another area or are moving between other’s home ranges,” explains Schuppli. “Therefore, it is possible that the behavior is shown by more individuals in his natal population outside the Suaq research area.”

This possibly innovative behavior presents the first report of active wound management with a biological active substance in a great ape species and provides new insights into the existence of self-medication in our closest relatives and in the evolutionary origins of wound medication more broadly.

“The treatment of human wounds was most likely first mentioned in a medical manuscript that dates back to 2200 BC, which included cleaning, plastering, and bandaging of wounds with certain wound care substances,” said Schuppli. Source: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/ape-treating-his-wound-using-medicinal-plant-is-a-world-first-for-a-wild-animal/
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Chimps shop like humans: Study

Photo Source: Thinkstock
Washington: Chimpanzees use manipulative dexterity to evaluate and select figs, similar to the way humans shop for fruits and vegetables, researchers say. Figs are a vital resource for chimps when preferred foods are scarce. The study demonstrates the foraging advantages of opposable fingers and careful manual prehension, or the act of grasping an object with precision. The findings shed new light on the ecological origins of hands with fine motor control, a trait that enabled our early human ancestors to manufacture and use stone tools. "The supreme dexterity of the human hand is unsurpassed among mammals, a fact that is often linked to early tool use," said Nathaniel J Dominy from Dartmouth College in the US. For the study, researchers observed the foraging behaviours of chimpanzees, black-and-white colobus monkeys, red colobus monkeys and red-tailed monkeys in Uganda. The primates depended on figs, and although ripe figs come in a range of colours, many stay green throughout development and every phase can be present on a single tree, making it difficult to discern solely by colour, which figs are ripe. To determine if the green figs of Ficus sansibarica are edible, chimpanzees ascend trees and make a series of sensory assessments — they may look at the fig's colour, smell the fig, manually palpate or touch each fig (using the volar pad of the thumb and lateral side of the index finger) to assess the fruit's elasticity and/or bite the fig to determine the stiffness of the fruit. Colobus monkeys do not have thumbs and evaluate the ripeness of figs by using their front teeth. Researchers examined the spectral, chemical and mechanical properties of figs, which included boring into individual figs to assess the elasticity of the fruit and extracting fig contents to estimate nutritional rewards such as sugar. They observed the non-selection, rejection and ingestion of individual figs, and collected specimens of figs that were avoided; palpated and rejected; palpated, bitten and rejected; and edible for which less than 50 per cent of the fruit was left. Chimpanzees also use their sense of smell to assess individual figs. Based on the sensory data obtained, researchers estimated the predictive power that sensory information may have on chimpanzees when estimating the ripeness of figs. Palpating figs was about four times faster than detaching and then biting the fruit, suggesting that chimpanzees may have a substantial foraging advantage over birds and monkeys, which rely on visual and oral information. The study provides new insight into how chimpanzees exhibit advanced visuomotor control during the foraging process and more broadly, on the evolution of skilled forelimb movements. The findings were published in the journal Interface Focus. — PTI Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com/
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Monkeys did sing like humans once

Monkeys did sing like humans once
Photo source: Thinkstock
Ancient monkeys used auditory cues similar to humans to distinguish between low and high sound notes, say researchers, adding that pitch perception may have evolved more than 40 million years ago to enable vocal communication and song-like vocalisations. Pitch perception is essential to our ability to communicate and make music. "But until now, we didn't think any animal species, including monkeys, perceived it the way we do. Now we know that marmosets, and likely other primate ancestors, do," said Xiaoqin Wang, professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University's school of medicine. Marmosets are small monkeys native to South America that are highly vocal and social. Other animal species have been reported to show pitch perception but none have shown the three specialised features of human pitch perception. First, people are better at distinguishing pitch differences at low frequencies than high. Second, humans are able to pick up on subtle changes in the spread between pitches at low frequencies or hertz. And third, at high frequencies, peoples' ability to perceive pitch differences among tones played simultaneously is related to how sensitive they are to the rhythm. Through a series of hearing tests, Wang's team determined that marmosets share all three features with humans, suggesting that human components of pitch perception evolved much earlier than previously thought. The American continent, with its marmosets in place, broke away from the African land mass approximately 40 million years ago, before humans appeared in Africa. So it's possible that this human-like pitch perception evolved before that break and was maintained throughout primate evolution in Africa until it was inherited by modern humans. "Another possibility is that only certain aspects of pitch perception were in place before the split, with the rest of the mechanisms evolving in parallel in Old and New World monkeys," the authors noted. "Now we can explore questions about what goes wrong in people who are tone deaf and whether perfect pitch is an inherited or learned trait," Wang concluded in a paper forthcoming in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. — IANS. Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com
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Cute golden monkeys play in the snow in nature reserve

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Two baby golden monkeys play in the tree at the Dalongtan Golden Monkey Research Center in Shennongjia, in central China's Hubei Province, on Jan. 12, 2016. The Shennongjia Nature Reserve is home to the rare golden monkeys, which have lived for many years on the verge of extinction since they were first spotted in Shennongjia in the 1960s. The amount of golden monkeys in the nature reserve has doubled since the 1980s because of better environmental protection. [Photo/Xinhua]. Source: China.org.cn
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4 Million Year Old Menu: What Our Ancestors Ate


The diet of Australopithecus anamensis, a hominid that lived in the east of the African continent more than 4 million years ago, was very specialized and, according to a scientific study whose principal author is Ferran Estebaranz, from the Department of Animal Biology at the University of Barcelona, it included foods typical of open environments (seeds, sedges, grasses, etc.), as well as fruits and tubers. 
Artist's concept for Australopithecus anamensi, Credit: Universidad de Barcelona
Australopithecus anamensis (or Praeanthropus anamensis) is a stem-human species that lived approximately four million years ago. Nearly one hundred fossil specimens are known from Kenya and Ethiopia, representing over 20 individuals.
Australopithecus anamensis bone fragment, Credit: University of Zurich
The work, published in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences, is directed by lecturer Alejandro Pérez Pérez, from the Anthropology Unit of the Department of Animal Biology at the UB, and its co-authors are professor Daniel Turbón and experts Jordi Galbany and Laura M. Martínez. Australipithecus anamensis is a fossil hominid species described in 1995 by a team led by the researcher Meave Leakey and it is considered to be the direct ancestor of Australopithecus afarensis, known as Lucy, which lived in the same region half a million years later. The paleoecological reconstructions of the sites with Australipithecus anamensis fossil remains are quite similar to those of Australipithecus afarensis, and suggest a scene with different habitats, from open forests to thick plant formations, with herbaceous strata and gallery forests.Traditionally, the reconstruction of the diet of Australipithecus anamensis was carried out by means of indirect evidence (specifically, studies of microstructure and enamel thickness, and the dental size and morphology). In this new study, the team of the UB analyzes the pattern of microstriation of the post-canine dentition, from microscopic traces that some structural components of plants (phytoliths) and other external elements (sand, dust, etc.) leave in the dental enamel during the chewing of food. It is, therefore, a direct analysis of the result of the interaction of the diet with the teeth. SEM images of buccal microstriation pattern of specimens studied: Au. anamensis (a-e) and Au. afarensis (f).

A cercopithecoid model for the study of the diet, Credit: Universidad de Barcelona 
The work published in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences studies the microstriation pattern of all the specimens of Australipithecus anamensis recovered up to the year 2003, of which only five are in a good state of preservation. According to the study of the microstriation pattern, the diet of Anthropological anamensis was similar to other present day species of cercopithecoid primates, such as Papiogenus(baboons) and Chlorocebus (green monkey), which live in shrubby savannah areas with a marked seasonal influence. The work arrived at the conclusion that the diet of Australipithecus anamensis was quite abrasive and rich in seeds, leaves and corms, as it is with the baboons of today. This fossil hominid must also have fed on fruit, but in smaller proportions than Australipithecus afarensis.

Graphical representation of the analysis of the groups studied that shows the differences between striation patterns of Au. anamensis and Au. afarensis, Credit: Universidad de Barcelona
What did Australopithecus afarensis eat? The results of the study on the palaeodiet of Australipithecus anamensis match the characteristics of dental morphology and increased robustness of the dentition and the masticatory apparatus compared with its ancestor, Ardipithecus ramidus. The new questions now focus on the diet of Australipithecus afarensis, direct descendent of Australipithecus anamensis, which has a frugivorous and much softer diet, like present day chimpanzees and gorillas in Cameroon. As explained by the researcher Ferran Estebaranz,“the microstriation pattern of Australipithecus anamensis and Australipithecus afarensis is clearly different. This could indicate that the former consumed much harder foodstuffs, whereas the latter had a basically frugivorous diet, of a seasonal character, more similar to the direct ancestor of the two species, Ardipithecus ramidus”. 
Ardipithecus ramidus, Credit: Wikipedia
Contacts and sources: Universidad de Barcelona, http://www.ub.edu, Citaiton: Buccal dental microwear analyses support greater specialization in consumption of hard foodstuffs for Australopithecus anamensis. Ferran Estebaranz, Jordi Galbany, Laura M Martínez, Daniel Turbón and Alejandro Pérez-Pérez. Journal of Anthropological Sciences. Vol. 90 (2012), pp. 1-244, Source: Article, 
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Planet of the Apes soon a reality?

Planet of the Apes soon a reality?
Washington, August 16: A new study reveals that apes might be closer to speaking than many scientists thought. In a study, Marcus Perlman, who started research work at The Gorilla Foundation, sifted 71 hours of video of Koko, a gorilla best known for American Sign Language, interacting with other researchers, and found repeated examples of Koko performing nine different, voluntary behaviors that required control over her vocalisation and breathing. These were learned behaviors, not part of the typical gorilla repertoire. Perlman watched Koko blow a raspberry when she wanted a treat, blow her nose into a tissue, play wind instruments, huff moisture onto a pair of glasses before wiping them with a cloth and mimic phone conversations by chattering wordlessly into a telephone cradled between her ear and the crook of an elbow. Perlman said that Koko did not produce a pretty, periodic sound when she performed these behaviors, like people do when they speak, adding that she could control her larynx enough to produce a controlled grunting sound. He said that Koko was probably no more gifted than other gorillas: the key was her environment. This suggests that some of the evolutionary groundwork for the human ability to speak was in place at least by the time of our last common ancestor with gorillas, estimated to be around 10 million years ago. Perlman further said that Koko showed the potential under the right environmental conditions for apes to develop quite a bit of flexible control over their vocal tract. The study is published in the journal Animal Cognition. — ANI. Source: Article,
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Watch: Koko's Tribute to Robin Williams

Koko the gorilla is a resident at the Gorilla Foundation in Woodside, CA and communicates understands spoken English and uses over 1,000 signs to share her feelings and thoughts on daily life. Robin Williams met Koko in 2001. According to Koko's caretaker, it was a very cheerful encounter for both, and Koko has treasured it to this day. "When Koko learned of Robin's passing (on Aug. 11, 2014) she became very sad.
We hope this video will lift her spirits and remind everyone of the profound gift of joy that Robin Williams brought to our world." Source: Article
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Chimpanzees have almost the same personality traits as humans


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Chimpanzees have almost the same personality traits as humans, and they are structured almost identically, according to new work. The research also shows some of those traits have a neurobiological basis, and that those traits vary according to the biological sex of the individual chimpanzee. Source: Bigfoot Evidence
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Chimpanzees Are Rational, Not Conformists

Higher rewards
himpanzees are sensitive to social influences but they maintain their own strategy to solve a problem rather than conform to what the majority of group members are doing. However, chimpanzees do change their strategy when they can obtain greater rewards, MPI researchers found. The study was published in PLOS ONE on November 28, 2013. Chimpanzees are known for their curious nature. They show a rich palette of learning behaviour, both individually and socially. But they are also rather  hesitant  to abandon their personal preferences, even when that familiar behaviour becomes extremely ineffective. Under which circumstances would chimpanzees flexibly adjust their behaviour? Edwin van Leeuwen and colleagues from the MPI's for Psycholinguistics and Evolutionary Anthropology conducted a series of experiments in Germany and Zambia to answer this question. Wooden balls for peanuts The researchers studied 16 captive chimpanzees at the Wolfgang Kohler Primate Research Center in Germany (Leipzig) and 12 semi-wild chimpanzees at the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage Trust, a sanctuary that houses more than a hundred chimpanzees under nearly natural conditions in the north-western part of Zambia. Chimpanzees were trained on two different vending machines. A minority of the group was made familiar with one machine and the majority of group members with the other machine. Wooden balls were thrown into their enclosure; the chimpanzees could insert these balls into the machines to receive one peanut for each ball. Van Leeuwen and his colleagues first aimed to replicate previous research and looked whether the chimpanzees in the minority group would change their behaviour toward using the vending machine that the majority of group members used. However, neither the German nor the Zambian chimpanzees gave up their strategy to join the majority. In the second study, the profitability of the vending machines was changed so that the vending machine that the minority used became more profitable, now spitting out five rewards for every ball inserted. Over time, the majority chimpanzees observed that the minority chimpanzees received more peanuts for the same effort and all but one gradually switched to using this more profitable machine. "Where chimpanzees do not readily change their behaviour under majority influences, they do change their behaviour when they can maximise their payoffs," Van Leeuwen says. "We conclude that chimpanzees may prefer persevering in successful and familiar strategies over adopting the equally effective strategy of the majority, but that chimpanzees find sufficient incentive in changing their behaviour when they can obtain higher rewards somewhere else.” “So, it's peanuts over popularity" he jokingly adds. The researchers emphasise that these results may be dependent upon the specific trade-offs that were created by the experimental design and that chimpanzees could act differently under the pressures of life in the wild. Van Leeuwen: "Conformity could still be a process guiding chimpanzees’ behaviour. Chimpanzee females, for instance, disperse to other groups in the wild. For these females, it is of vital importance to integrate into the new group. Conformity to local (foraging) customs might help them to achieve this integration." Link to the publication. Contacts and sources: Edwin van Leeuwen. Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Source: Article
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Young Apes Manage Emotions Like Humans

Researchers studying young bonobos in an African sanctuary have discovered striking similarities between the emotional development of the bonobos and that of children, suggesting these great apes regulate their emotions in a human-like way. This is important to human evolutionary history because it shows the socio-emotional framework commonly applied to children works equally well for apes. Using this framework, researchers can test predictions of great ape behavior and, as in the case of this study, confirm humans and apes share many aspects of emotional functioning. Zanna Clay, PhD, and Frans de Waal, PhD, of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, conducted the study at a bonobo sanctuary near Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo. The results are published in the current issue of theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Detailed video analysis of daily social life at the sanctuary allowed Clay and de Waal to measure how bonobos handle their own emotions as well as how they react to the emotions of others. They found the two were related in that bonobos that recovered quickly and easily from their own emotional upheavals, such as after losing a fight, showed more empathy for their fellow great apes. Clay notes those bonobos more often gave body comfort (kissing, embracing, touching) to those in distress. The bonobo (Pan paniscus), one of our closest primate relatives, is as genetically similar to humans as is the chimpanzee. The bonobo is widely considered the most empathic great ape, a conclusion brain research supports. "This makes the species an ideal candidate for psychological comparisons," says de Waal. "Any fundamental similarity between humans and bonobos probably traces back to their last common ancestor, which lived around six million years ago," he continues. If the way bonobos handle their own emotions predicts how they react to those of others, this hints at emotion regulation, such as the ability to temper strong emotions and avoid over-arousal. In children, emotion regulation is crucial for healthy social development. Socially competent children keep the ups and downs of their emotions within bounds. A stable parent-child bond is essential for this, which is why human orphans typically have
trouble managing their emotions. The bonobo sanctuary in this study includes many victims of bushmeat hunting. Human substitute mothers care for the juvenile bonobos that were forcefully removed at an early age from their bonobo mothers. This care continues for years until the bonobos are transferred to a forested enclosure with bonobos of all ages. "Compared to peers reared by their own mothers, the orphans have difficulty managing emotional arousal," says Clay. She observed how the orphans would take a long time recovering from distress: "They would be very upset, screaming for minutes after a fight compared to mother-reared juveniles, who would snap out of it in seconds.""Animal emotions have long been scientifically taboo," says de Waal, but he stresses how such studies that zoom in on emotions can provide valuable information about humans and our society. "By measuring the expression of distress and arousal in great apes, and how they cope, we were able to confirm that efficient emotion regulation is an essential part of empathy. Empathy allows great apes and humans to absorb the distress of others without getting overly distressed themselves," continues de Waal. He says this also explains why orphan bonobos, which have experienced trauma that hampers emotional development, are less socially competent than their mother-raised peers. Contacts and sources: Lisa Newbern, Emory Health Sciences. Source: Nano Patents And Innovations
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Search for ape man continues against the odds

An imagined recreation of the disputed ape-like creature, Bigfoot, stands in a museum in Shennongjia, Hubei province. [File photo/For China Daily]
That ever elusive figure known as Bigfoot, or Yeren (wild man) to the Chinese, is bouncing back to life as a group of Chinese scientists and explorers scout around for international help to mount a new search for it - even though the debate over its existence has lingered for decades. Bigfoot, also known elsewhere as the  abominable snowman, in this case refers to a half-man, half-ape creature in the Shennongjia Nature Reserve, in a remote, mountainous part of Hubei province, in Central China. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, authorities organized three high-profile expeditions to search for signs of Bigfoot, but came up empty handed. In view of the large amount of expenditure required for these expeditions, the government decided to put a stop to them. Nonetheless, curiosity about the mysterious man-like creature still lingered among experts and ordinary folk alike. Then, last November, the Wild Man Research Association was founded in Hubei, pulling in more than 100 members interested in the search for Yeren, including a number of scientists and experts. These included the 75-year-old Wang Shancai, of the Hubei Relics and Archaeology Institute, who is vice-president of the association, and happens to be a strong believer in Bigfoot. One of Wang's reasons for his passion: "Over 30 years, I've collected a large amount of data." In spite of the fact that while those expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s yielded little other than some hair, a footprint, and some excrement suspected of belonging to Yeren, there was no conclusive proof, but Wang is undeterred. He said there were more than 400 people who claimed to have seen Bigfoot in the Shennongjia area over the last century. To him, "that's strong proof". And he's gotten support from a local "witness", Zhang Jiahong, a sheep rancher in the town of Muyu in the nature reserve, who says he saw two wild men as recently as September 2005. What did they look like? Zhang told China Daily on Monday that they had "hairy faces, eyes like black holes, prominent noses, faces that resembled both a man and a monkey, disheveled hair, and stood more than 2 meters tall". But that does not hold water with everyone, for example, Hu Hongxing. He is a 75-year-old Wuhan University professor who thinks that the search is nonsense and just a bunch of hype. Hu's field is ornithology and he has been studying animals in the Shennongjia area for a long time. His reasoning goes like this: "That location is not consistent with that of ape man. There's a basic standard for judging whether it exists, for example, the species grouping and area of distribution. There's no area for wild man's activity in Shennongjia." He concludes by pointing to the failure of the 1970s and 1980s expeditions. Wang, pressing ahead, thinks it is normal to have different opinions. "Thirty years ago when we discovered golden monkeys in Shennongjia, some zoologists said it was impossible. It turned out that there were more than 500 of them living there," he concludes. As for the new expedition, he has new ideas and blames the failure of the previous searches on their "unscientific" nature. "It's difficult and expensive getting all the technology to cover a 3,200-square-kilometer range of mountains, a large part of which is primeval forest." So, the association is looking for volunteers from around the world to join this latest high-tech search for Yeren. What kind of people should apply? "We want devoted team members," said Luo Baosheng, vice-president of the group, "since it will involve a lot a hard work." The search area has been broken up into target areas, Luo explained - especially caves that the creature would most likely inhabit. According to Wang, the team's first hurdle is to come up with about 10 million yuan ($1.5 million), so they are talking to companies and other organizations about funding. There's no timetable yet for when they might start out on their trek. Lest you think that China is a stranger to all this crypto-zoology, do not be so sure. After all, tales abound of mysterious, Loch Ness monster-like creatures inhabiting the remote reaches of the country's lakes. And, Tibetans have long talked about the existence of the yeti, up there somewhere in the high snowy mountains of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Source: Image, Source: China.org.cn
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Scientists Announce Top 10 New Species

Credit: Composite: Jacob Sahertian
An amazing glow-in-the-dark cockroach, a harp-shaped carnivorous sponge and the smallest vertebrate on Earth are just three of the newly discovered top 10 species selected by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. A global committee of taxonomists — scientists responsible for species exploration and classification — announced its list of top 10 species from 2012 today, May 23. The announcement, now in its sixth year, coincides with the anniversary of the birth of Carolus Linnaeus — the 18th century Swedish botanist responsible for the modern system of scientific names and classifications. The top 10 new species list was announced May 23 by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. The 2013 list includes an amazing glow-in-the-dark cockroach, a harp-shaped carnivorous sponge, and the smallest vertebrate on Earth -- a tiny frog. It also includes a snail-eating false coral snake, flowering bushes, a green lacewing, a hangingfly fossil, a monkey with a blue-colored behind and human-like eyes, a tiny violet and a black staining fungus. Also slithering it way onto this year's top 10 is a snail-eating false coral snake, as well as flowering bushes from a disappearing forest in Madagascar, a green lacewing that was discovered through social media and hangingflies that perfectly mimicked ginkgo tree leaves 165 million years ago. Rounding out the list is a new monkey with a blue-colored behind and human-like eyes, a tiny violet and a black staining fungus that threatens rare Paleolithic cave paintings in France. "We have identified only about two million of an estimated 10 to 12 million living species and that does not count most of the microbial world," said Quentin Wheeler, founding director of the International Institute for Species Exploration at ASU and author of "What on Earth? 100 of our Planet's Most Amazing New Species" (NY, Plume, 2013). "For decades, we have averaged 18,000 species discoveries per year which seemed reasonable before the biodiversity crisis. Now, knowing that millions of species may not survive the 21st century, it is time to pick up the pace," Wheeler added. "We are calling for a NASA-like mission to discover 10 million species in the next 50 years. This would lead to discovering countless options for a more sustainable future while securing evidence of the origins of the biosphere," Wheeler said. Taxon experts pick top 10: Members of the international committee made their top 10 selection from more than 140 nominated species. To be considered, species must have been described in compliance with the appropriate code of nomenclature, whether botanical, zoological or microbiological, and have been officially named during 2012.  "Selecting the final list of new species from a wide representation of life forms such as bacteria, fungi, plants and animals, is difficult. It requires finding an equilibrium between certain criteria and the special insights revealed by selection committee members," said Antonio Valdecasas, a biologist and research zoologist with Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain. Valdecasas is the international selection committee chairman for the top 10 new species. "We look for organisms with unexpected features or size and those found in rare or difficult to reach habitats. We also look for organisms that are especially significant to humans — those that play a certain role in human habitat or that are considered a close relative," Valdecasas added. This year's top 10 come from Peru; NE Pacific Ocean, USA: California; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Panama; France; New Guinea; Madagascar; Ecuador; Malaysia; and China. Top 10 New Species, 2013, "I don't know whether to be more astounded by the species discovered each year, or the depths of our ignorance about biodiversity of which we are a part," shared Wheeler. "At the same time we search the heavens for other earthlike planets, we should make it a high priority to explore the biodiversity on the most earthlike planet of them all: Earth," he added. "With more than eight out of every 10 living species awaiting discovery, I am shocked by our ignorance of our very own planet and in awe at the diversity, beauty and complexity of the biosphere and its inhabitants."
Describing the discoveries
Lilliputian Violet 
Viola lilliputana 
Country: Peru
Tiny violet: Not only is the Lilliputian violet among the smallest violets in the world, it is also one of the most diminutive terrestrial dicots. Known only from a single locality in an Intermontane Plateau of the high Andes of Peru, Viola lilliputana lives in the dry puna grassland eco-region. Specimens were first collected in the 1960s, but the species was not described as a new until 2012. The entire above ground portion of the plant is barely 1 centimeter tall. Named, obviously, for the race of little people on the island of Lilliput in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
Lyre Sponge 
Chondrocladia lyra 
Country: NE Pacific Ocean; USA: California
Carnivorous sponge: A spectacular, large, harp- or lyre-shaped carnivorous sponge discovered in deep water (averaging 3,399 meters) from the northeast Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. The harp-shaped structures or vanes number from two to six and each has more than 20 parallel vertical branches, often capped by an expanded, balloon-like, terminal ball. This unusual form maximizes the surface area of the sponge for contact and capture of planktonic prey.
Lesula Monkey 
Cercopithecus lomamiensis 
Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Old World monkey: Discovered in the Lomami Basin of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the lesula is an Old World monkey well known to locals but newly known to science. This is only the second species of monkey discovered in Africa in the past 28 years. Scientists first saw the monkey as a captive juvenile in 2007. Researchers describe the shy lesula as having human-like eyes. More easily heard than seen, the monkeys perform a booming dawn chorus. Adult males have a large, bare patch of skin on the buttocks, testicles and perineum that is colored a brilliant blue. Although the forests where the monkeys live are remote, the species is hunted for bush meat and its status is vulnerable.
No to the Mine! Snake 
Sibon noalamina 
Country: Panama
Snail-eating snake: A beautiful new species of snail-eating snake has been discovered in the highland rainforests of western Panama. The snake is nocturnal and hunts soft-bodied prey including earthworms and amphibian eggs, in addition to snails and slugs. This harmless snake defends itself by mimicking the alternating dark and light rings of venomous coral snakes. The species is found in the Serranía de Tabasará mountain range where ore mining is degrading and diminishing its habitat. The species name is derived from the Spanish phrase "No a la mina" or "No to the mine."
A Smudge on Paleolithic Art 
Ochroconis anomala 
Country: France
Fungus: In 2001, black stains began to appear on the walls of Lascaux Cave in France. By 2007, the stains were so prevalent they became a major concern for the conservation of precious rock art at the site that dates back to the Upper Paleolithic. An outbreak of a white fungus, Fusarium solani, had been successfully treated when just a few months later, black staining fungi appeared. The genus primarily includes fungi that occur in the soil and are associated with the decomposition of plant matter. As far as scientists know, this fungus, one of two new species of the genus from Lascaux, is harmless. However, at least one species of the group, O. gallopava, causes disease in humans who have compromised immune systems.
World's Smallest Vertebrate 
Paedophryne amanuensis 
Country: New Guinea
Tiny frog: Living vertebrates — animals that have a backbone or spinal column — range in size from this tiny new species of frog, as small as 7 millimeters, to the blue whale, measuring 25.8 meters. The new frog was discovered near Amau village in Papua, New Guinea. It captures the title of 'smallest living vertebrate' from a tiny Southeast Asian cyprinid fish that claimed the record in 2006. The adult frog size, determined by averaging the lengths of both males and females, is only 7.7 millimeters. With few exceptions, this and other ultra-small frogs are associated with moist leaf litter in tropical wet forests — suggesting a unique ecological guild that could not exist under drier circumstances.
Endangered Forest 
Eugenia petrikensis 
Country: Madagascar
Endangered shrub: Eugenia is a large, worldwide genus of woody evergreen trees and shrubs of the myrtle family that is particularly diverse in South America, New Caledonia and Madagascar. The new species E. petrikensis is a shrub growing to two meters with emerald green, slightly glossy foliage and beautiful, dense clusters of small magenta flowers. It is one of seven new species described from the littoral forest of eastern Madagascar and is considered to be an endangered species. It is the latest evidence of the unique and numerous species found in this specialized, humid forest that grows on sandy substrate within kilometers of the shoreline. Once forming a continuous band 1,600 kilometers long, the littoral forest has been reduced to isolated, vestigial fragments under pressure from human populations.
Lightning Roaches? 
Lucihormetica luckae 
Country: Ecuador
Glow-in-the-dark cockroach: Luminescence among terrestrial animals is rather rare and best known among several groups of beetles — fireflies and certain click beetles in particular — as well as cave-inhabiting fungus gnats. Since the first discovery of a luminescent cockroach in 1999, more than a dozen species have (pardon the pun) "come to light." All are rare, and interestingly, so far found only in remote areas far from light pollution. The latest addition to this growing list is L. luckae that may be endangered or possibly already extinct. This cockroach is known from a single specimen collected 70 years ago from an area heavily impacted by the eruption of the Tungurahua volcano. The species may be most remarkable because the size and placement of its lamps suggest that it is using light to mimic toxic luminescent click beetles.
No Social Butterfly 
Semachrysa jade 
Country: Malaysia
Social media lacewing: In a trend-setting collision of science and social media, Hock Ping Guek photographed a beautiful green lacewing with dark markings at the base of its wings in a park near Kuala Lumpur and shared his photo on Flickr. Shaun Winterton, an entomologist with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, serendipitously saw the image and recognized the insect as unusual. When Guek was able to collect a specimen, it was sent to Stephen Brooks at London's Natural History Museum who confirmed its new species status. The three joined forces and prepared a description using Google Docs. In this triumph for citizen science, talents from around the globe collaborated by using new media in making the discovery. The lacewing is not named for its color — rather for Winterton's daughter, Jade.
Hanging Around in the Jurassic 
Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia 
Country: China
Hangingfly fossil: Living species of hangingflies can be found, as the name suggests, hanging beneath foliage where they capture other insects as food. They are a lineage of scorpionflies characterized by their skinny bodies, two pairs of narrow wings, and long threadlike legs. A new fossil species, Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia, has been found along with preserved leaves of a gingko-like tree, Yimaia capituliformis, in Middle Jurassic deposits in the Jiulongshan Formation in China's Inner Mongolia. The two look so similar that they are easily confused in the field and represent a rare example of an insect mimicking a gymnosperm 165 million years ago, before an explosive radiation of flowering plants. Why create a top 10 new species list? Arizona State University's International Institute for Species Exploration announces the top 10 new species list each year as part of its public awareness campaign to bring attention to biodiversity and the field of taxonomy. "Sustainable biodiversity means assuring the survival of as many and as diverse species as possible so that ecosystems are resilient to whatever stresses they face in the future. Scientists will need access to as much evidence of evolutionary history as possible," said the institute's Wheeler, who is also a professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and in the School of Sustainability, as well as a senior sustainability scientist with the Global Institute of Sustainability. "All of our hopes and dreams for conservation hinge upon saving millions of species that we cannot recognize and know nothing about," Wheeler added. "No investment makes more sense than completing a simple inventory to the establish baseline data that tells us what kinds of plants and animals exist and where. Until we know what species already exist, it is folly to expect we will make the right decisions to assure the best possible outcome for the pending biodiversity crisis." Additionally, the announcement is made on or near May 23 to honor Linnaeus. Since he initiated the modern system for naming plants and animals, nearly two million species have been named, described and classified. Excluding unknown millions of microbes, scientists estimate there are between 10 and 12 million living species. IISE International Selection Committee: Antonio G. Valdecasas, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, Spain, Committee Chair; Andrew Polaszek, Natural History Museum, England; Ellinor Michel, Natural History Museum, England; Marcelo Rodrigues de Carvalho, Universidade de São Paulo; Aharon Oren, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Mary Liz Jameson, Wichita State University, USA; Alan Paton, Kew Royal Botanical Gardens, England; James A. Macklin, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canada; John S. Noyes, Natural History Museum, England; Zhi-Qiang Zhang, Landcare Research, New Zealand; and Gideon Smith, South African National Biodiversity Institute, South Africa.  Nominations for the 2014 list — for species described in 2013 — may be made online at http://species.asu.edu/species-nomination. Previous top 10 lists are available at: http://species.asu.edu. Contacts and sources: Sandra Leander Arizona State University, Source: Nano Patents And Innovations
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