Meet the Other Social Influencers of the Animal Kingdom
Culture, once considered exclusive to humans, turns out to be widespread in nature.
A chimpanzee in the Chimfunshi wildlife sanctuary in Zambia, where one chimp began a tradition of wearing a blade of grass in the ear, which carried on after her death.Credit.David Pike/Alamy
May 7, 2021
Julia, her friends and family agreed, had style. When, out of the blue, the 18-year-old chimpanzee began inserting long, stiff blades of grass into one or both ears and then went about her day with her new statement accessories clearly visible to the world, the other chimpanzees at the Chimfunshi wildlife sanctuary in Zambia were dazzled.
Ulstein continues work on GLDD’s new rock installation vessel April 14, 2021, by Zlatan Hrvacevic
Following the basic design contract in December 2020, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. LLC (GLDD) has now contracted Ulstein to continue the project with the integration engineering for their new dynamically positioned rock installation vessel.
This contract is the next step in realising the first Jones Act compliant subsea rock installation vessel to serve the U.S. market.
The scope of work includes the selection of vessel main equipment with integration engineering plus the start of detail design.
Awarding this contract is intended to advance the engineering work, ensuring the vessel is on schedule to meet its operational target of Q2 2024.
Ulstein bags US vessel engineering contract renews.biz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from renews.biz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Cultural lives of animals revealed
The idea that only humans have culture and that this neatly separates us from animals is challenged by an extensive review of decades of research into animal culture by a leading expert in animal behaviour at the University of St Andrews.
Professor Andrew Whiten, Emeritus Wardlaw Professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology in the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of St Andrews, argues the case in a wide-ranging review published in the journal Science surveying all that has been discovered in recent decades about how animals create their own cultures.
Most wild Chimpanzees will expend effort to assist others without return, and also put within-group conflicts aside when they sense a threat, two simultaneously published papers reveal. One of the studies also shows kindness levels vary between chimpanzee groups.
Among our great ape cousins, chimpanzees often seem like the bad members of the family. Orangutans are peaceful introverts, bonobos are lovers not fighters and even gorillas are much gentler than their fearsome reputations might suggest. Chimpanzees, on the other hand, are capable of cruelty that reminds us of our own capacity for atrocities. However, new research shows chimps also have better sides.