Caught on camera, capuchin monkeys kidnap howler monkey babies
WASHINGTON (AP) — A baby howler monkey clung to the back of an older male monkey, its tiny fingers grasping fur. But they're not related and not even the same species.
Scientists spotted surprising evidence of what they describe as monkey kidnappings while reviewing video footage from a small island of Panama. The capuchin monkeys were seen carrying at least 11 howler babies between 2022 and 2023.
'This was very much a shocking finding,' said Zoë Goldsborough, a behavioral ecologist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany. 'We've not seen anything like this in the animal kingdom.'
The monkeys' motivations remain under investigation. Capuchins are house cat-size monkeys found in South America and Central America. They are long-lived, clever and learn new behaviors from each other. One group of capuchins in Panama has even learned to use stone tools to crack open nuts and seafood.
Goldsberg and other researchers at Max Planck and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute had set up more than 80 cameras to study capuchin tool use, but were surprised to see the first howler babies appear in early 2022.
The footage showed the capuchins walking and pounding their stone tools with baby howlers on their backs. But cameras did not capture the moments of abduction, which scientists said likely happened up in the trees, where howlers spend most of their time.
'Our window into this story is constrained,' said co-author Margaret Crofoot of Max Planck and the Smithsonian. The findings were published Monday in the journal Current Biology.
In most or all cases, the baby howlers died, researchers said. Infant howler monkeys would normally be carried by their mothers while still nursing. All the babies in the video -- from a few weeks to a few months in age -- were too young to be weaned.
'A hopeful part of me wants to believe some escaped and went back to their mothers, but we don't know,' said Crofoot.
The videos recorded a few instances of young capuchin males still carrying howler babies that had died, likely from starvation. Many animals -- from gorillas to orcas -- have been observed carrying their own dead offspring, though scientists aren't sure the reasons.
Why did the capuchin males do it? There were no signs of deliberate aggression toward the babies and they weren't eaten, ruling out predation.
'We've all spent hours wracking our brains why they would do this,' said Goldsborough.
The first baby-snatcher may have had a confused 'caring motivation,' or parental instinct, because he showed gentleness interacting with the infants, she said. Then four other males copied his actions.
The researchers said they don't believe the capuchins harmed the babies on purpose. So far, only one group of capuchins has been known to kidnap.
The research shows the 'remarkable behavioral variation across social groups of the same species,' said Catherine Crockford, a primatologist at the CNRS Institute for Cognitive Sciences in France, who was not involved in the study.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Was '28 Years Later' worth the wait? Beauty in the frightening madness of zombie movie
It's been 23 years since Danny Boyle and Alex Garland collaborated on 28 Days Later, and with such a large gap in films, a big question for 28 Years Later has been whether it can reinvigorate the excitement of the first. Starring Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, Jack O'Connell and Alfie Williams, the new movie feels electric. It's becoming increasingly more difficult to really feel surprised by a movie, with so many clinging to familiar and beloved plot points and storytelling elements. But 28 Years Later is able to fully shock and surprise. 28 Years Later release date: June 20Director: Danny BoyleWriter: Alex GarlandCast: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams, Ralph Fiennes, Jack O'ConnellRuntime: 115 minutes It's been, as the title states, almost three decades since the rage virus escaped a biological weapons laboratory and decimated the U.K., prompting a strict quarantine. A small group of survivors live on an island, connected to the mainland by a causeway, which can only be crossed during a low tide. The film is focused on 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams), who we meet on his first day of an excursion to the mainland with his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). It's a rite of passage for Spike to take the intimidating journey for his "first kill," as he says goodbye to his sick mother Isla (Jodie Comer), who suffers from a condition that's impacted her both physically and cognitively. While on the hunt Spike finds out about Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and hopes that he could help his ailing mother. Jamie is adamant that won't be the case, but Spike doesn't listen and travels back with his mother to reach Dr. Kelson on the mainland. Garland and Boyle certainly aren't giving us the expected with 28 Years Later. The film is firmly planted in the horror genre, while including rich commentary on modern society, without sacrificing any off the gruesome elements. The first portion of the movie is largely focused on intense chase scenes and terrifying zombie surprises with the introduction of the Alphas. The naked creatures are some of the most terrifying zombies we've gotten in a long time, while the film also suggests that the zombies may not be as mindless as many believe. Boyle's direction takes a brisk pace through the film. It feels sharp and impactful with a really satisfying execution of something thrillingly chaotic. Using elements like stock footage of British soldiers and clips of other films, it adds to the startling nature of the movie. Notably, the movie was filmed on iPhones, an evolution from the digital cameras used in the first film, as Boyle provides terrifying frenzied shots, in addition to breathtaking images of the landscape. As we get deeper into the story, there's more time spent on the film's examination od humanity, including our relationship with death and questions about the ecosystem, while adding a sprinkling of dark comedy. But that's what Garland does well, he adds a compelling richness to films while making room for visual impact, and creating a foundation to elevate both elements. While some may think 28 Years Later is too wacky for them, while the story could have more cohesion overall, there's no denying the spectacle of the film as we lean into the feeling of dread throughout the story.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Nobel laureate concerned about AI-generated image of black hole at the center of our galaxy
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The monster black hole at the center of our galaxy is spinning at ear "top speed," according to a new artificial intelligence (AI) model. The model, trained partially on complex telescope data that was previously considered too noisy to be useful, aims to create the most detailed black hole images ever. However, based on the questionable quality of the data, not all experts are convinced that the AI model is accurate. "I'm very sympathetic and interested in what they're doing," Reinhard Genzel, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany and one of the winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics, told Live Science. "But artificial intelligence is not a miracle cure." For decades, scientists have been trying to observe and characterize Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy. In May 2022, they unveiled the first-ever image of this enormous object, but there were still a number of questions, such as how it behaves. Now, an international team of scientists has attempted to harness the power of AI to glean more information about Sagittarius A* from data collected by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Unlike some telescopes, the EHT doesn't reside in a single location. Rather, it is composed of several linked instruments scattered across the globe that work in tandem. The EHT uses long electromagnetic waves — up to a millimeter in length — to measure the radius of the photons surrounding a black hole. However, this technique, known as very long baseline interferometry, is very susceptible to interference from water vapor in Earth's atmosphere. This means it can be tough for researchers to make sense of the information the instruments collect. "It is very difficult to deal with data from the Event Horizon Telescope," Michael Janssen, an astrophysicist at Radboud University in the Netherlands and co-author of the study, told Live Science. "A neural network is ideally suited to solve this problem." Janssen and his team trained an AI model on EHT data that had been previously discarded for being too noisy. In other words, there was too much atmospheric static to decipher information using classical techniques. Through this AI technique, they generated a new image of Sagittarius A*'s structure, and their picture revealed some new features. For example, the black hole appears to be spinning at "almost top speed," the researchers said in a statement, and its rotational axis also seems to be pointing toward Earth. Their results were published this month in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Pinpointing the rotational speed of Sagittarius A* would give scientists clues about how radiation behaves around supermassive black holes and offer insight into the stability of the disk of matter around it. RELATED STORIES — New view of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way hints at an exciting hidden feature (image) — Sagittarius A* in pictures: The 1st photo of the Milky Way's monster black hole explained in images — The 1st Milky Way black hole image was groundbreaking — the next could be even better However, not everyone is convinced that the new AI is totally accurate. According to Genzel, the relatively low quality of the data going into the model could have biased it in unexpected ways. As a result, the new image may be somewhat distorted, he said, and shouldn't be taken at face value. In the future, Janssen and his team plan to apply their technique to the latest EHT data and measure it against real-world results. They hope this analysis will help to refine the model and improve future simulations. This story was provided by a sister site of
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
First Near-Complete Denisovan Skull Reveals What This Ancient Human Cousin Looked Like
A prominent brow ridge with a brain as large as modern humans and Neanderthals — that's what the archaic human group, the Denisovans, looked like, according to work published this week in Cell and Science. Palaeontologists used ancient molecules to identify a cranium found near Harbin in northeastern China as belonging to the group. It's the first time a near-complete skull has been definitively linked to the extinct people. The fossil, which is at least 146,000 years old, ends a decade and a half of speculation about the Denisovans' appearance. This had remained a mystery since scientists identified them from unique DNA taken from a finger bone found in a Siberian cave in 2010. [Sign up for Today in Science, a free daily newsletter] 'It's really exciting to finally have Denisovan DNA from a nearly complete cranium,' says Janet Kelso, a computational biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. 'We finally have some insights into the cranial morphology of the Denisovans,' she says. 'It's really exciting to finally have Denisovan DNA from a nearly complete cranium,' says Janet Kelso, a computational biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. 'We finally have some insights into the cranial morphology of the Denisovans,' she says. The 'massive' cranium — the upper portion of the skull, lacking the lower jawbone — is one of the best preserved of all archaic human fossils, according to researchers who first described it in 2021. Qiang Ji, a palaeontologist at Hebei GEO University in Shijiazhuang, China, obtained the specimen from an unnamed man in 2018. The man — who Ji suspects discovered the artefact himself but failed to report it to authorities — claimed that his grandfather unearthed the fossil in 1933 during bridge-construction work over Long Jiang (which means dragon river), and buried it in an abandoned well, where it remained until a deathbed confession. In 2021, Ji and his colleagues determined that the 'Dragon Man' fossil represented a new archaic human species, which they crowned Homo longi4. When Ji published those findings, Qiaomei Fu, a geneticist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, got in touch. Fu worked on the very first Denisovan DNA from the Siberian finger bone and wanted to see whether the Dragon Man fossil contained any ancient molecules. She and her team first attempted to extract ancient DNA from a part of the skull called the petrous bone — often a good source — and from an attached tooth. They didn't recover any genetic material but did extract and sequence fragments from 95 ancient proteins from the petrous samples. Fu compared these with Neanderthal, modern human and Denisovan sequences. One protein sequence from the Harbin fossil was identical to that of a protein from the Siberian finger bone, as well as from Denisovans uncovered in Tibet and Taiwan, but differed from proteins in modern humans and Neanderthals. That suggested the Dragon Man individual was a Denisovan. Fu's team identified two further, less conclusive, protein matches. It's the second time this year that researchers have used ancient proteins to identify a fossil as Denisovan. In April, Takumi Tsutaya, a bioarchaeologist at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Kanagawa, Japan, and his colleagues identified a Taiwanese jawbone as belonging to a Denisovan. Tsutaya says that he was amazed to learn that another Denisovan has already been identified. But Fu says that she wanted further evidence. She turned to a tiny chip of calcified dental plaque, or calculus. Fu looked for DNA from the host among the bacterial DNA in the sample. And she found it. Genetic sequences from the maternally inherited mitochondrial genome of the Dragon Man skull were most closely related to early Denisovans from Siberia, which were between 187,000 and 217,000 years old. Fu says that this is the first time that host DNA has been recovered from dental calculus from the Palaeolithic era, which ended 12,000 years ago. Rikai Sawafuji, a geneticist at Kyushu University in Fukoka, Japan, who worked on the Taiwanese fossil, was surprised that the team recovered human DNA from the calculus, given that no DNA was recovered from the petrous bone. She says this could spur other researchers to analyse ancient plaque from Palaeolithic fossils. 'If there is some dental calculus,' she says, 'people can extract human mitochondrial DNA from those samples' to learn more about prehistoric human migrations. Potentially more important is that scientists now have a Denisovan cranium that researchers can use to identify other Denisovan specimens in their collections, even if no ancient DNA or protein can be found. This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on June 18, 2025.
