Sunday 10 August 2014

Monkeys Recognize Family, Even if Separated at Birth (Op-Ed)

By Anwesha Ghosh, University of Rochester | August 09, 2014 03:08am ET

This article was originally published at The Conversation.The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Macaque monkeys grow up with their mothers and are often not familiar with their fathers. But they can recognise the paternal side of the family even without ever being introduced to them, according to a study published in the journal Current Biology. The researchers suggest that just looking at another monkey is enough to know whether they are related.

“There is some evidence that non-human primates can recognise facial resemblances between two other individuals, just like us,” Dana Pfefferle, lead author and post-doctoral researcher at Duke University, said. “We found that the macaques could detect their own relatives without being familiar with members of that side of the family.”

No comments:

Post a Comment

You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!

Related Posts with Thumbnails

ShareThis