Discovering Ardi on Discovery Channel Tonight

The face of Ardi. Photo from Discovery Channel.

Discovering Ardi premiers tonight (Sunday, 10/11) on Discovery Channel at 9pm ET/PT. About the show, according to Discovery Channel's website.

Following publication in the journal Science on the discovery and study of a 4.4 million-year-old female partial skeleton nicknamed "Ardi," Discovery Channel will present a world premiere special, DISCOVERING ARDI, Sunday October 11 at 9 PM (ET/PT) documenting the sustained, intensive investigation leading up to this landmark publication of the Ardipithecus ramidus fossils.
UNDERSTANDING ARDI, a one-hour special produced in collaboration with CBS News will air at 11 PM (ET/PT) immediately following DISCOVERING ARDI. The special is moderated by former CBS and CNN anchor Paula Zahn and includes research team members Dr. Tim White, Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Dr. Giday WoldeGabriel, Dr. Owen Lovejoy, and science journalist Ann Gibbons
The scientific investigation began in the Ethiopian desert 17 years ago, and now opens a new chapter on human evolution, revealing the first evolutionary steps our ancestors took after we diverged from a common ancestor we once shared with living chimpanzees. "Ardi's" centerpiece skeleton, the other hominids she lived with, and the rocks, soils, plants and animals that made up her world were analyzed in laboratories around the world, and the scientists have now published their findings in the prestigious journal Science.
"Ardi" is now the oldest skeleton from our (hominid) branch of the primate family tree. These Ethiopian discoveries reveal an early grade of human evolution in Africa that predated the famous Australopithecus nicknamed "Lucy." Ardipithecus was a woodland creature with a small brain, long arms, and short legs. The pelvis and feet show a primitive form of two-legged walking on the ground, but Ardipithecus was also a capable tree climber, with long fingers and big toes that allowed their feet to grasp like an ape's. The discoveries answer old questions about how hominids became bipedal.
The international research team weighed in on the scope of the project and its findings:

"These are the results of a scientific mission to our deep African past," said project co-director and geologist, Dr. Giday WoldeGabriel of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"The novel anatomy that we describe in these papers fundamentally alters our understanding of human origins and early evolution," said project anatomist and evolutionary biologist, Professor C. Owen Lovejoy, Kent State University.

Project co-director and paleontologist Professor Tim White of the Human Evolution Research Center at the University of California Berkeley adds, "Ardipithecus is not a chimp. It's not a human. It's what we used to be."
DISCOVERING ARDI begins its story with the 1974 discovery of Australopithecus afarensis in Hadar, northeastern Ethiopia. Nicknamed "Lucy," this 3.2 million year old skeleton was, at the time, the oldest hominid skeleton ever found. As the Discovery Channel special documents, Lucy's title would be overtaken twenty years later by the 1994 discovery of "Ardi" in Ethiopia's Afar region in the Middle Awash study area. It would take an elite international team of experts the next fifteen years to delicately, meticulously and methodically piece together "Ardi" and her lost world in order to reveal her significance.

Female Orangutan Mating Strategies

There is a published paper by Knott et al. (2009) from next month's Proceedings of The Royal Society B about female Bornean orangutans and their reproductive strategies. The authors propose that female orangutan's mating strategies is a product of coevolution from male coercion and also selective resistance.

There are two morphs in male orangutans; flanged or unflanged. Both are secondary sexual characteristics (traits that distinguish the two sexes of a species but are not part of the genitalia). Flanged males are usually adult dominant males. Unflanged males are either juveniles (who haven't developed their secondary sexual characteristics) or non-dominant adult males. These adult unflanged males might develop a flange when they become a "dominant" male or might never develop one in their lifetime. High levels of forced copulation in orangutan is common, especially by unflanged males. Orangutans are polygamous and males generally do not spend anytime with the female after copulation. Orangutans are usually solitary (with the exception of mother and infant pair), due to scarcity of food sources.

The authors found that females, when near ovulation, mated cooperatively only with prime flanged males. When the conception risk for these females was low, they willingly associate and mate with unflanged males. These observations supported the hypothesis that, together with concealed ovulation, facultative association is a mechanism of female choice in a species where females can rarely avoid coercive mating attempts. Female resistance reduces copulation time and may provide an additional mechanism for mate selection. However, female mating strategies is important to avoid aggressive interactions from flanged males and also as infanticide avoidance.

Reference:
Knott, CD. Thompson, ME. Stumpf, RM. McIntyre, MH. 2009. Female reproductive strategies in orangutans, evidence for female choice and counterstrategies to infanticide in a species with frequent sexual coercion. Proceedings of The Royal Society B Retrieved October 9, 2009, from http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/10/06/rspb.2009.1552 [doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.1552]

Extended Habitat For Greater Bamboo Lemurs Found

 A Greater Bamboo Lemur (Prolemur simus) feeding on Giant Bamboo in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar. Photo from Wikipedia.

Good news for Madagascar and lemur conservationists! Scientists have spotted bamboo lemurs in 11 sites east of the island where its populations were thought to have disappeared, AFP has reported.

The Greater Bamboo Lemur (Prolemur simus) is one of the most endangered primates in the world. Endemic to Madagascar, its name suggest that their primary food source is bamboo. Their specialized diet limits its range.

This finding opens "a new chapter for the species and for the places we can protect it by preserving the forest as the main problem is loss of habitat," Mahaoly Ravaloharimanitra, a research assistant at the Aspinall Foundation, told AFP.

The Greater Bamboo Lemur was thought to be extinct until 1980s. Currently there are no more than 300 individuals left. They use to range from western, northern and central Madagascar but are now limited to patches of forest in the southeastern part of Madagascar. Destruction of rain forest habitat by slash and burn agriculture and extensive cutting of bamboo, the lemur's primary food source.

Read more about Greater Bamboo Lemurs on Animal Info.

Self-Suckling in Barbary Macaques Before and After Infant's Death

Self-suckling is a rare behavior that occurs among Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) and might have been a learned behavior. Dr. Bonaventura Majolo and his PhD. student Richard McFarland noticed this behavior while studying Barbary macaques in the middle-Atlas mountains of Morocco (2009). They published their findings, "Brief communication: Self-suckling in Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus) mothers before and after the death of their infant" on American Journal of Physical Anthropology last July.

Dr. Majolo and his student observed eight females with infants from two troops; "Flat face" and "Large". They found that four mothers from "Flat face" troop self-suckle themselves for a brief moment when their infant is still alive, possibly to improve milk flow when the infant change from one nipple to the other. All four of these females lost their infant due to predation or some unknown cause. They then observed these females self-suckling in bouts up to two minutes. Self-suckling was never observed between four females in "Large" troop before and after the death of an infant (only one monkey lost its infant in this troop).

Barbary macaque females from "Flat face" troop. Photo from BBC.

Majolo and McFarland think that self-suckling in Barbary macaque is cultural although they don't know why such behavior exists. It might be a response to make up for the energy they had invested in producing milk, help relieve engorged breasts, to help boost the females' immune system or even an emotional response to losing an infant.

"In humans and other species, breast-feeding reduces the stress through the release of prolactin. It is therefore possible that the self-suckling functions to reduce the stress generated by the loss of the infant ... It is interesting that we observed self-suckling in just one troop and not the other. This may indicate that self-suckling is a sort of cultural behavior. We will have to wait to see if self-suckling is consistently displayed by females in the same troop and not in the others", said Dr. Majolo.

References:

Majolo, B. McFarland, R. 2009. Brief communication: Self-suckling in Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus) mothers before and after the death of their infant. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 140(2): 381-383. [10.1002/ajpa.21125]

Walker, M. 2009. Grieving monkeys drink own milk. BBC. Retrieved October 5, 2009, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8287000/8287774.stm

Baby Sumatran Orangutan Born in Philadelphia Zoo

While Ardipithecus ramidus was all abuzz in the paleontology, physical anthropology, primatology and science blogosphere yesterday, the folks at Philadelphia Zoo were keeping themselves busy for another addition to their PECO Primate Reserve.

 Sugi, the proud father. Flickr photo from Kevin Burkett.

A baby was born to the zoo's resident Sumatran orangutan family (Pongo abelii), Tua (16 years old) and Sugi (13 years old), on Oct 2nd at around 8am. This is the first orangutan baby born at PECO Primate Reserve since it was opened in 1999 and also the first offspring for both Tua and Sugi. No words yet whether the baby is a boy or a girl.

According to Philadelphia Zoo's press release, both mother and baby appear to be doing well. The first 48 hours are crucial for the baby so zoo staff and veterinarians are closely monitoring both Tua and her baby. They do not know when Tua and her baby will make their debut at the PECO Primate Reserve.

Congratulations Tua and Sugi! See you soon.