In Chimp World, Males Find Older Females Sexier

In Chimp World, Males Find Older Females Sexier

November 21, 2006 — By Maggie Fox, Reuters

WASHINGTON — Chimpanzee males prefer to have sex with older females, U.S. researchers found in a study published Monday that shows one of the biggest behavioral differences between humans and our closest biological relatives.

Male chimps will chase down and fight over the oldest females, while the youngest female chimps are forced to beg for masculine attention, anthropologist Martin Muller and colleagues at Boston University discovered.

"It's really dramatic because it's not just that the old chimps are avoiding the youngest adult females. They actually have a strong preference for the older mothers," Muller said in a telephone interview.

Writing in the journal Current Biology, Muller and colleagues said they studied chimpanzees living in the Kanyawara community of Kibale National Park in Uganda.

It is easy to observe their mating behavior.

"Chimpanzee copulations are frequently preceded by a series of male courtship signals (e.g., glancing with erect penis and branch shaking), after which either the male or the female approaches the other to mate," the researchers wrote.

They also collected the chimps' urine to test for various hormones that demonstrate fertility.

They were checking to see if chimpanzees behave like humans, their closest living relatives, who form long-term mating bonds and who value younger females.

This is most definitely not the case with chimps. The very oldest adult females were the most sought-after.

"The males fight over them more," Muller said.

"They don't have to do anything to get the males interested. The males find them. They follow them around. If you look at the very youngest females, the males will mate with them but it does take more work on the female's part."

SHOWING OFF

Also unlike humans, female chimpanzees actively advertise when they are fertile, with bright red swellings around the genital area. And unlike human females, chimpanzees apparently remain fertile their entire lives, although these wild Ugandan chimpanzees rarely lived beyond the age of 40.

Older female chimpanzees are more dominant socially and have access to better food. Muller said. "The females that have access to the most food are the most fecund -- the most likely to conceive in any cycle," he said.

Males may know that.

Older females may also be better mothers, the researchers guessed.

"The males do end up mating with all the females for the most part," Muller noted. But he said the study challenges common conceptions.

"Normally, I think peoples' default assumption is, 'Well other animals, they must also find young females attractive,"' Muller said. "And people assume that young females are more fertile than older females."

But female chimpanzees do not experience the rapid decline in fertility that is seen in human females after their 20s.

Humans may prefer younger females because of marriage and other "long-term pair-bonds," something that is nonexistent in the promiscuous world of chimps. Human men seeking progeny may need to start with younger prospective mothers, Muller said.

"Chimpanzee males may not find the wrinkled skin, ragged ears, irregular bald patches, and elongated nipples of their aged females as alluring as human men find the full lips and smooth complexions of young women, but they are clearly not reacting negatively to such cues," the researchers concluded.

Source: Reuters

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"Take this tip from nature: The forest would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best."

Bernard Meltzer

Campaign to Plant One Billion Trees in 2007

Kenyan Nobel Prize Winner Launches Campaign to Plant One Billion Trees in 2007

November 08, 2006 — By Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Associated Press

 

NAIROBI — A Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner called on people around the world to plant 1 billion trees in the next year, saying Wednesday the effort is a way ordinary citizens can fight global warming.

Wangari Maathai, who in 2004 became the first black African woman to win a Nobel in any category, urged participants to ensure the trees thrive long after they are planted.

"It's one thing to plant a tree, it's another to make it survive," said Maathai, who founded Kenya's Green Party in 1987 and focused on planting trees to address the wood fuel crisis here.

Maathai said the campaign is meant to inspire ordinary citizens to help the environment.

"This something that anybody can do," Maathai said Wednesday at the U.N. conference on climate change, which has drawn delegates from more than 100 countries to Kenya.

Scientists blame the past century's 1-degree rise in average global temperatures at least in part on the accumulation of carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere _ byproducts of power plants, automobiles and other fossil fuel burners.

Africa is the continent expected to suffer most from shifting climate zones and droughts, like the one now in its fourth year in East Africa.

Destroying trees through burning contributes to global warming, releasing about 370 million tons of greenhouse gases every year _ about 5 percent of the world total _ scientists say. Planting trees can offset climate change in part because they absorb carbon dioxide.

The tree-planting project, organized by the United Nations Environment Program, shows that "action does not need to be confined to the corridors of the negotiation halls," said Achem Steiner, UNEP's executive director.

The project calls on participants _ including individuals, schools and governments _ to sign up on UNEP's Web site and register the trees they planted.

Also Wednesday, some climate conference participants said the results of Tuesday's midterm elections in the United States were a good sign for environmental issues. The U.S. _ the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases _ has rejected mandatory emissions cuts, saying they could hamstring the economy and because poorer countries are exempt.

On Tuesday, Americans swept Democrats into power in the House of Representatives for the first time in a dozen years and largely dismantled the GOP Senate majority.

"President Bush still has two more years in office so it's very unlikely that the U.S. negotiating posture will change," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

But, he said, the fact that Democrats, many of whom support emissions caps, took control of the House means climate and energy issues will be prominent in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Source: Associated Press

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Glorifying the rural life

Hats off to Ms. Chanda Shroff !

 

The painstaking and beautiful craft of hand embroidery dates back several thousand years. One of its traditional homes is Kutch, a corner of the Indian state of Gujarat. Known for its intricate and diverse styles, Kutchi embroidery has, since the 1960s, suffered a decline due to a modern emphasis on speed and profit, and a growing reliance on machinery and synthetic fabrics. An Indian woman, Chanda Shroff, aged 73, has worked tirelessly and voluntarily for almost four decades to reverse this decline.

 

http://www.rolexawards.com/laureates/laureate-88-shroff.html

Three wild elephants electrocuted in Assam

Guwahati, Nov 13: Three Asiatic wild elephants have died of electrocution after a high tension wire fell on a herd in Assam, wildlife officials said Monday.

A forest warden said an elephant herd Sunday strayed into the Behali tea plantation, about 230 km from here, and tripped over an electric pole.

"The high tension wire first electrocuted a full-grown female elephant and immediately two of her calves tried to rescue her and in the process all the three died," Chandan Bora, divisional forest officer, told IANS by telephone.

The herd of about 35 elephants was moving in the area for quite sometime causing large-scale depredation to paddy fields and damaging village huts.

"It was a touching sight when the rest of the herd surrounded the dead elephants and were literally in tears, trumpeting at times and licking them frequently ," the warden said.

The herd retreated from the accident site after sundown Sunday.

"We have ordered an investigation to probe if the electric wire fell on the elephant herd after the animals tripped on the pole or was it an intentional ploy by villagers to take revenge as the herd had damaged their properties," Bora said.

Deadly turf wars between humans and hungry elephants in Assam have reached alarming proportions.

Shrinking forests and encroachment on elephant territory by people have forced the animals to stray from their habitats into human settlements in the quest of food.

Elephants have killed nearly 240 people in Assam in the past five years while 265 elephants have died during the same period, many of them victims of retaliation by angry humans, said a wildlife department report released last month.

Satellite imagery shows that between 1996 and 2000, villagers encroached on some 280,000 hectares of thick forests in Assam, according to authorities.

The attitude of people towards elephants has become less tolerant as the pachyderms have become an increasing problem for villagers. Villagers often poison the marauding elephants, while in the past they drove them away by beating drums or bursting firecrackers, said officials.

Assam has India's largest population of Asiatic elephants, estimated at around 5,300, according to a wildlife census in 2002. 

- IANS

URL: http://www.newkerala.com/news4.php?action=fullnews&id=49792

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"Take this tip from nature: The forest would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best."

Bernard Meltzer

Lizards...yikes!, have personalities! isn't that great?

 

 

Ewwww! that's what my mom says when she sees a lizard. And as a matter of being her son, i also found lizards... eeeewww! but now,,,,, I find them interesting and am trying to catch them by hands(strictly gloved!).

 

Here's an article that says.....lizards also, just like u & me have personalities!

 

Cheers!

Lizards have personalities too, study shows

13:35 08 November 2006

NewScientist.com news service

Roxanne Khamsi

They may be cold-blooded, but some lizards have warm personalities and like to socialise, a new study shows.

A behavioural study reveals that lizards have different social skills: some are naturally inclined to join large groups while others eschew company altogether. The discovery of reptilian personality types could help ecologists better understand and model animal population dynamics, say the researchers involved.

Scientists define "personality differences" as consistent behavioural differences between individuals across time and contexts. But there is a need for more research on these differences in wild animals, says Julien Cote of the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France. "Psychologists have explored the considerable range of non-human personalities like sociability, but mostly on domesticated animals," he says.

Scent of another

Cote and colleagues captured wild pregnant common lizards (Lacerta vivipara), and as soon as the offspring were born they were exposed to the scent of other lizards, to test their reactions. Over the next year the team monitored the newly born creatures to see how much time each spent in different areas of their enclosure.

Lizards that showed an aversion to other scents at an early age were more likely to flee highly populated areas of the enclosure, Cote's team found. These lizards were described as "asocial". In contrast, those that had been initially attracted to other scents often left sparsely populated areas of the enclosure to seek out areas of higher population density.

Understanding these personality differences in wild animals could give ecologists a more nuanced view of population dynamics, Cote says. "When studying and modelling how populations function, it is necessary to consider different kinds of individuals reacting differently to the environment rather than a unique behavioural response for all individuals."

Other experts agree that personality types could help explain why some animals might be more reluctant to leave a group and explore new turf. "If you have a personality by definition you are constrained," says ecologist Jason Jones of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, US.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2006.3734)
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"Take this tip from nature: The forest would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best."

Bernard Meltzer