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Monkey Attack!
Sixty-two year old James Davis is finally getting out the hospital this week after being savagely attacked by chimps six months ago. What were they doing? They "...were celebrating the 39th birthday of their former pet chimp, Moe, at the Animal Haven Ranch when two young chimps broke out of their cages and viciously attacked the couple. Davis lost most of his fingers, parts of his foot, a testicle and parts of his face, and both chimps were shot dead during the attack..."
Note to self: never invite monkeys to another monkey's birthday party. Both of the Davis' say they still don't believe chimps are dangerous. With forgiveness and compassion like that, you can see why they were throwing a party for an old monkey.
If the chimps did beat the heck out of Jim, they used their left hands. Turns out most chimps are left-handed, which in humans correlates with being more artistic. Perhaps there was something about the party that offended them. But no matter what, it was genetic: chimps are just not as sociable as other animals, such as voles: scientists have proved it.
Humans, voles and bonobos (pygmy chimps known for strong social bonds) have fairly lengthy microsatellite regions, and the three species as a whole tend to be somewhat sociable. Chimpanzees, which are low on the empathy scale, don't have many microsatellites in their genome. (Genome studies focus on species, so it is possible to have individual chimps with longer microsatellites than normal.)
Perhaps this explains why Moe, who was the object of the birthday party, did not participate in the attack. He was a nice monkey.
BTW, bonobos are the most sexually-active of all the monkeys, take a look at this article (warning, monkey porn.) One zookeeper was surprised when the bobonos arrived to get a "full kiss on the mouth" from one of the animals, which practice all sorts of human activities(warning again. These are some really horny little monekys). Whereas the chimps usually bite and throw dung at people. Definitely a less friendly bunch. But it does beg the question: which would be better to have attack you? A bunch of crap-throwing, biting, left-handed chimps? Or a big gang of horny, mouth-kissing bonbonos? Maybe Jim has a point: I'd stick with the chimps.
Lessons to learn here? If you get invited to a birthday party, don't go if there are going to be a lot of monkeys present. If you buy a monkey, make sure he is right-handed. And finally, sometimes it really is genetic.
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