Chimps Have a Built-In GPS 195
destinyland writes "European researchers have discovered that chimpanzees have a built-in mental GPS, keeping 'a geometric mental map of their home range, moving from point to point in nearly straight lines.' Using GPS, two primatologists followed 15 chimpanzees for 217 days, and determined that the apes were 'using a mental map built around geometric coordinates.' They're not just identifying landmarks in their surroundings, and in fact, even when swinging through trees, the chimps planned out their route several trees in advance. Here's the paper in the journal Animal Behavior."
Built-In Mental GPS (Score:3, Funny)
Does it run Linux?
THere's no way i'm having a chimp on my dashboard (Score:5, Funny)
Chimp Satellites (Score:2, Funny)
So does Commander Taco... (Score:3, Funny)
Devolution (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Built-In Mental GPS (Score:4, Funny)
Does it run Linux?
I hear it's Gutsy Gibbon.
buh-duh... ching
I already knew this (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Built-In Mental GPS (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft Sues Chimps.
You really think they'll sue themselves?
Re:THere's no way i'm having a chimp on my dashboa (Score:2, Funny)
JPS (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Isn't that just... (Score:5, Funny)
The animal had gone to the back of the house, climbed to the upper story and come into the house through a little window high in the shower cubicle of the upstairs bathroom. Then it walked back down the stairs and into our room.
Of course it has a map. What it doesn't know is that I am going to strangle it if it keeps pulling tricks like that.
It's dead reckoning . . . (Score:5, Funny)
...a fancy way of saying "remembering where stuff is relative to other stuff"?
Yeah, I was thinking that this is just a bit of "dead reckoning," combined with old salty pirate skills:
"Arrrgh, when yee see the rock, that looks like the skull of a monkey, turn left, take twenty paces, and the treasure is buried below. But beware the curse . . ."
I guess she's got "cat GPS" and/or is "using internal distance transform maps"...
Just to be on the safe side, see if your cat can perform the same trick, while wearing a tinfoil hat. And please get back to us if she can. Maybe those felines are up to something behind our backs.
Re:What does the G in GPS stand for (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Pay per Paper (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Built-In Mental GPS (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine a bonobo cluster of those!
Re:Isn't that just... (Score:5, Funny)
No, that's far too much effort. What actually happened was the cat read your mind, realised that you knew a plausible route by which it could get in, and so after being put out it just sat comfortably until you were out of sight and then teleported back onto your bed, knowing that you would never suspect anything.
Cats put the kind of effort into being lazy that the most hardened work ethic afficionado could only dream of.
Re:Does this mean (Score:3, Funny)
With this built-in GPS, would chimp-mounted lasers be more accurate than shark-mounted ones?
Yes, but the chimps tend to drown when you throw them in the water. Something about their density and not having gills.
Re:But... (Score:5, Funny)
The last time the chimp community lost GPS signals they all started crashing into each other and exploding. It was a real tragedy.
Rumour has it Microsoft's Ballmer was repeatedly spotted running into walls and throwing chairs.
Re:What does the G in GPS stand for (Score:2, Funny)
They have a magic box in their heads and it speaks to them! "Next branch, swing left"
It speaks as a British woman.
Re:Built-In Mental GPS (Score:3, Funny)
Imagine a bonobo cluster of those!
Bonobos do activities in clusters, but that activity ain't GPS...though it does involve positioning.
Re:Pay per Paper (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, evolution has its dead ends as well.
*ducks*