People make more stupid monkeys

The use of stone tools - quite rare in primates. We know only a few species of monkeys that can be used stone tools, but human influence can lead to the fact that they forget how to do it.

Long-tailed macaques living on the Andaman Coast of Thailand (they are called cynomolgus), used stones to open the shell extraction - oysters or crab, with such tools are able to use about 88% of all members of the population. Now macaque risk to forget how to act with stone tools, as after the devastating tsunami of 2004, farmers began to actively explore the coastal areas, and guard dogs scare away monkeys, causing the latter can not get crabs and oysters, and do not get the hang of using stones.



Here is how the problem of Dr. Michael Gumert of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore:

"In the past six years, there are more plantations producing rubber and palm oil. I noticed that the monkeys who live in the vicinity of production, eventually changing their habits. If they had come ashore to catch crab and stone break his shell, but now there is a dog, a monkey and avoid the appearance of the coast.

Use of long-tailed macaques stone tools - this is really a unique capability to develop their process of evolution. If people continue to afflict monkeys, they all learn to stop wielding stones and start rummaging through the garbage to get your own food ».

Long-tailed macaques is not endangered or downsizing, so long-term environmental consequences of such a device monkeys can be relatively small. However, the use of tools - the unique ability in the process of evolution to find it was only a little, so a person should think about the prevention of the degradation of his closest relatives from the animal world.

via factroom.ru