Rare ape cranium fossil uncovered in China

A team of American and Chinese researchers have uncovered a rare fossil – the cranium of a young ape from a site in Yunnan province, China that dates back to the Miocene period, some 23 to five million years ago.

The cranium of the juvenile ape, Lufengpithecus, is only the second relatively complete cranium from a young ape from the Miocene record that has ever been unearthed.

Source: Here

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Midlife Crisis in Apes

Are you feeling anxious, forlorn, tired and washed-up lately? Do you want to quit your job due to boredom, dump your spouse for someone else or perhaps buy a red convertible to make up for those lost years? Maybe you are experiencing midlife crisis – a state or a time in one’s life where there is emotional transformation between the ages 40 to 60 years old. Although not all people go through midlife crisis, some really have difficulty coping with such a stressor. There comes a point that comes in the way of personal relationships, careers and even health.

Well, you are not alone. Chimps and apes experience midlife crisis, too. What do they usually do when they experience this kind of emotional crisis? Too bad apes cannot buy a red sports car to ease their anxiety and kiss those emotional stressors goodbye. If they can only buy a red Ferrari, they surely will but of course, it would not be possible. So how these have researches proven this state of midlife crisis among apes just like humans?

Studies have shown that captive chimps do experience the same low emotional state during midlife in the same way it has also discovered in people. Midlife crisis and discontent has been proven to be true and has been experienced in the universal sense. Some may not go through with this, but others virtually try to live with it and take matters into their own hands resulting to depression, divorce, job loss, health problems and many more negative effects. This need not be the case. This event need not be a crisis. This should be a time of reflection and an opportunity to discover new things and embrace changes for the better.

Now, let’s go back to midlife crisis in apes. Though most humans do go through midlife crisis brought about by social, cultural and emotional concerns, the midlife crisis in apes may be a result of biology that can be traced back to its evolutionary roots and not culture.

Or maybe it’s the other way around. Is the midlife crisis of humans caused too by biology and evolutionary roots since apes and humans basically come from the same Homonidae which forms the taxonomy of primates?

According to the study revealed in Yahoo News, “It suggests the human tendency toward midlife discontent may have been passed on through evolution, rather than resulting simply from the hassles of modern life, said Oswald, a professor of economics at the University of Warwick in England who presented his work Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Apes and Surrogacy

Apes and surrogacy has long been something which modern researchers and scientists have looked into, as well as classic fiction writers and scribes.

The 1984 movie starring Christopher Lambert, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, stands to be the most popular yarn touching up on the subject, with countless variations and versions of the Tarzan legend.

But as popular as the Tarzan legend and character is, no factual record telling of a human baby being raised by apes in the jungle has yet been known, but records which touch up on how infant apes and monkeys respond to “surrogate mothers” are around.

The most famous would be the circa 1950s studies of Harry Harlow, who conducted experiments delving into an infant monkey’s ascription of the maternal instinct and how infants are liable to respond to surrogate mothers.

In his study, Harlow separated infant rhesus monkeys from their mothers just a couple of hours after they were born. In a controlled environment, the researcher provided two “man-made” surrogate mothers, one constructed out of simple wire meshes and the other made with a layer of “fur”.

Both “man-made” surrogate mothers were designed with hardware components made to dispense milk. Given a choice, the infant monkeys would opt for the “man-made” surrogate mother with a layer of “fur”, rather than the one bearing a more “industrial look”.

The groundbreaking study has proven to be influential in further delving into how surrogate mothers have an effect on infants, with its implications delving into the areas of psychology, as well as emotional dynamics involved in adoption situations and cases.

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