Through A Mirror, Darkly

[vgnwtch]

Armed and dangerous

The discovery of a chimpanzee making and using a spear in Senegal is not only a surprising revelation about our nearest evolutionary relative, say Mairi MacLeod and Ian Sample - it could also provide invaluable insights into how man developed technology

Comments

[vgnwtch]

To be fair, we don't know if the researchers were concentrating on the males for a specific reason (presumably so), but the observation of spear use seems to have been accidental - it doesn't read (to me, at least) that they were watching for such activity in males; their surprise just seems to be that it was a) happening at all, and b) that there are gendered hunts, with males participating in one kind and females in another.

Anyone who grew up with or has an animal living with them knows they're individuals - it is a testament to the adaptability of the human mind that we can emotionally block and refuse to look at the implications for our food. I know I did not think about it until I was 18, and didn't really think much about dairy food production and all it entailed until about 9 years later.