“Among Orangutans: Red Apes and the Rise of Human Culture”
Short but interesting interview with Carel van Schaik (orangutan researcher) in the NYT:
Q. So your discovery that the orangutans learned tool use from one another explains “the rise of human culture” part of your book’s subtitle?A. Well, yes. Orangutans split off from the African lineage some 14 million years ago. If both chimps and orangutans make tools, our common great ape ancestor probably had the capacity for culture.
This book by van Schaik is quite excellent. Although written for a lay audience, much of the information in it would probably be novel and quite interesting to readers of this blog. The photographs are also very cool. I can’t think of another coffee-table book that I would recommend more highly.
What book DQ? Maybe the link isn’t coming through no my screen.
The title of the thread is actually the name of the book. Its author is Carel van Schaik, a primatologist. Available for $19.99, I think, from Amazon.
In Yosemite National Park, the rangers have to change the latches on the food lockers every few years because some Yogi, who is smarter than the average bear, figures out how to do open the latest latch, and within a few years they are all doing it.