"
Great apes, our closest relatives, may hold the key to how language evolved in our lineage.
"It's exciting to describe a new
great ape species in the 21st century - however with such low numbers of the Batang Toru orangutans, it is vital that we now work to protect them.
"If steps are not taken quickly to reduce threats, a
great ape species may be extinct within a few decades."
"It's exciting to describe a new
great ape species in the 21st century, however, with such low numbers of the Batang Toru orangutans it is vital that we now work to protect them.
While new species are discovered often, especially as scientists use modern techniques like genome sequencing, it is highly unusual for a new
great ape species to be identified in the 21st century, since they are among the most extensively studied animals on the planet.
As he now sees our history, at some stage, perhaps some millions of years after the hominins diverged from the
great ape stock, ecological change drove a transition from foragers as technically ingenious, social, but competitive individuals to collaborative foragers, and the challenges and opportunities of collaboration drove hominin minds and social lives further and further away from
great ape norms.
Biosecurity for staff in the
great ape area included wearing gloves, dedicated footwear and clothing, handwashing, and use of footbaths when entering and exiting the facility and during movement between troops.
"The results of the study demonstrate that human activities reduce the amount of effective bonobo habitat and will help us identify where to propose future protected areas for this
great ape." "For bonobos to survive over the next 100 years or longer, it is extremely important that we understand the extent of their range, their distribution, and drivers of that distribution so that conservation actions can be targeted in the most effective way and achieve the desired results," said Ashley Vosper of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Silver, who had taken the
Great Ape into captivity, had left when the sun was angling through the front windows.
But attempts to renew the
Great Ape Conservation Fund have gotten stuck in Congress and may become a victim of the effort to rein in the federal budget deficit.
In 1993, Paola Cavalieri and I founded The
Great Ape Project, an organization dedicated to the idea of recognizing that
great apes have a moral status befitting their nature as self-aware beings who are capable of thought and have rich and deep emotional lives.
There are six species of
great ape and 16 species of gibbon, all under threat from hunting, deforestation and disease.