Kanzi The Bonobo Can Start A Fire, Cook His Own Food (PHOTOS)

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Anyone who's ever seen "Planet of the Apes" or the recent "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," knows this is exactly how it starts. And it's all downhill from here. Kanzi, a fun-loving male bonobo, has figured out how to cook his food with fire, the Daily Mail reports. Bonobos are also known as pygmy or dwarf chimpanzees, and listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List due in large part to poaching. According to the Daily Mail report, this is the first time a bonobo ape has developed this skill, which Dr Savage-Rumbaugh, of the Great Ape Trust, links to early human development. "When humans learned to control fire and to domesticate dogs we began to feel a new level of safety which freed us to become creative and to create more sophisticated cultures," Savage-Rumbaugh told the Daily Mail. Kanzi's skills have also transcended food groups: not only can he cook hamburgers in a pan over the fire, but he can roast marshmallows at the end of a stick, too. The curious bonobo first learned to use fire by lighting matches, which the Mail's David Derbyshire described as "eerie," and "remarkably human." Adding to his short order cook resume, Kanzi also understands 3,000 spoken words and can "say" close to 500 words by pointing to symbols known as lexigrams. This isn't the first time apes have displayed uniquely human behavior. The report "Spontaneous Prosocial Choice By Chimpanzees," published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the primates are as cooperative as humans, especially when their partners are patient with them. "For me, the most important finding is that like us, chimpanzees take into account the needs and wishes of others," researcher Dr. Victoria Horner told LiveScience following the study. Previous studies have also found that monkeys can doubt themselves, and even show disappointment and regret. And while we're on the topic of human-like apes, who could forget the video of two-year-old chimpanzee Do Do feeding a bottle of milk to his buddy Aorn, a two-month-old tiger cub?

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Not quite as interesting but:

FaceTime for Apes: Orangutans Use iPads to Video Chat With Friends In Other Zoos
By Rebecca Boyle
Posted 01.03.2012 at 12:02 pm


Orangutans living in captivity will soon start using iPads for primate play-dates, using Skype or FaceTime to interact with their brethren in other zoos, according to zookeepers. The great apes have been playing with iPads for about six months at the Milwaukee County Zoo, and they’ve been such a hit that other zoos plan to introduce them, too.

The “Apps for Apes” program started after a zookeeper commented online about getting some iPads for her gorilla charges. Someone donated a used iPad, and it turned out the gorillas didn’t care for it. But the orangutans loved it, as the LA Times says.

The apes don’t typically get to hold the pricey tablets, because they’re strong enough to break them in half, zookeepers said. Instead, a keeper will hold the iPads up to a primate cage and let the apes interact with them. The orangutans have been playing with apps like Doodle Buddy by sticking their fingers through their cages’ mesh. One orangutan, 31-year-old MJ, is apparently a huge fan of David Attenborough nature programs, the BBC reports.


A group called Orangutan Outreach, which is involved in the Apps for Apes effort, is waiting for the iPad 3 to come out so the original iPad will become obsolete and cheaper for zoos to obtain. The Houston Zoo has one iPad but hasn’t introduced it to the orangutans yet, while Zoo Atlanta, the Toronto Zoo and the Phoenix Zoo are waiting to get iPads. When they do, zookeepers across the institutions plan to set up play-dates when the apes can chat via Skype or FaceTime.

Seeing the primates with iPads has an effect on zoo visitors, according to Richard Zimmerman, who directs Orangutan Outreach: “They have this recognition that these are amazing, cognitive, curious creatures,” he told the Times.

Dolphins have been using iPads since their debut, so it’s really about time our primate cousins adopted the technology.

FaceTime for Apes: Orangutans Use iPads to Video Chat With Friends In Other Zoos | Popular Science

It's the same thing, just with more sophisticated technology, I suppose. I like it because it's really no different from the transfer of technology from human to human. We like to flatter ourselves on our intelligence, but not one person in a million could actually invent fire or an i-pad from scratch. We got them in exactly the same way that the apes did - by copying others.

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his owner taught him some tricks, they teach apes tricks all the time more advanced than that.

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Originally Posted by LiberalNation

his owner taught him some tricks, they teach apes tricks all the time more advanced than that.

I'll keep that in mind next time I watch a human put a quarter into a vending machine, press a button, and get a treat.

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when the monkey can design and build one of them machines I 2 will be amazed.

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Give unto Caesar that what is Caesar's, and lie like hell to keep as much of the rest of your shit as you can.

"If you want something said ask a man...if you want something done, ask a woman" Margaret Thatcher

The point is they're not "tricks". This is research, not some sort of carnival show. Kanzi is a very interesting case.

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As an infant, Kanzi accompanied Matata to sessions where she was taught language through keyboard lexigrams, but showed little interest in the lessons. It was a great surprise to researchers then when one day, while Matata was away, Kanzi began competently using the lexigrams, becoming not only the first observed ape to have learned aspects of language naturalistically rather than through direct training, but also the first observed bonobo to appear to use some elements of language at all.[2][3] Within a short time, Kanzi had mastered the ten words that researchers had been struggling to teach his adoptive mother, and he has since learned more than two hundred more. When he hears a spoken word (through headphones, to filter out nonverbal clues), he points to the correct lexigram. ... Although Kanzi learned to communicate using a keyboard with lexigrams, Kanzi also picked up some American Sign Language from watching videos of Koko the gorilla, who communicates using sign language to her keeper Penny Patterson; Savage-Rumbaugh did not realize Kanzi could sign until he signed "You, Gorilla, Question" to anthropologist Dawn Prince-Hughes, who had previously worked closely with gorillas.[12]

Kanzi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by LiberalNation

when the monkey can design and build one of them machines I 2 will be amazed.

Cos obviously you build i-pads from scratch every day...

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