Pet Peeve

I love a well-done advertisement. They should entertain, inform, and persuade.

There's a site, Trunk Monkey for an auto insurance company, where you push a button and a chimp comes out of the trunk and does some pretty handy things.

I also loved the Superbowl ads for an employment agency that used the lone guy working at Yeknom Inc., an office full of Chimps. Hilarious. Well written.

Just one thing: Chimpanzees are Apes, not Monkeys. A great wikipedia article is here gives all the basics, and any search the word chimp, and Goodall will give you all manner of cool information. Our very own Oakland Zoo has a page devoted to them here.

The best summary of the way to tell the two apart are found here at a site refuting some Creationist garbage. And all Creationist stuff is garbage, by the way.

" Apes are more similar to humans than monkeys are in many anatomical features of the skull, skeleton and dentition (teeth). The most obvious difference between apes and monkeys is that apes lack a tail."

Pretty much sums it up. We're primates, and along with us, there's two other main groups, apes, and monkeys. There's only a handful of apes; chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons. Gibbons are the loudest, singing to mark their territory. I used to take my favorite two primates, the dirklings to watch the two at the Seattle zoo. the male was missing his arm from the elbow down, and he and his mate would swing and howl all day. Always wanted to sample them and do something with it.

Some other interesting facts about chimps I''ve picked up over the years.

The Genus Pan is our closes living relative, sharing over 97% of our DNA. They are omnivorous, eating both plants and animals, have a complex social hierarchy and have an astounding %50 success rate when hunting monkeys. Compared with so-called "super predators" like canines and felines which usually have a one in six chance or one in twelve chance of success. These are animals that have evolved specifically to chase, catch, kill and eat other animals, yet Chimps are more successful. The two troops observed doing this do so using differing methods. One troop cooperates, and shares in the kill according to status; the other competes for the kill and the spoils are divided by who makes the kill to cement alliances and vie fore status. Both groups are equally effective.

Bonobos, the other species is known for being matriarchal, more egalitarian, vegetarian, and sexually promiscuous. It's been rumored they play hackey sack and like tie dyed clothing.

Draw your own conclusions.

In the original series of Batlestar Galactica, the kid had a cool robot called a daggit, the pet's name was "Muffit"

Here's a picture:






Who wouldn't want on of those? When I found out it was a chimp in the suit, I wanted one even more.

When my wife and I are out and about, we'll occasionally see some cute kid, and she'll say, "I want one of those. Only I don't want the to get much bigger, where can we get one." We live next to The City, which has more dogs than children in it, so it's becoming more and more of a rarity to see them in the streets.

I would love to see some biotech company making a new kind of pet, one that kind of looks like a kid, but is really a marmoset or a macaque or something like that. Has to have hands with opposable thumbs, to get beer and stuff. Bigger than a mogwai, like in gremlins, but smaller than about a meter. I don't see why it couldn't be done. Look at what we did to something like wolves, give us a few hundred years, and we make all sorts of shake and bark dogs like Chihuahuas and Yorkshire terriers. They were done with no knowledge of genes, and no computers.Imagine what could be done with a little imagination, some Venture Capital, and sojme very influential Harajuku teens to influence demand. With the aging Baby Boomers, there's a market for companion and assistance pets.

Just a thought