monkeys

2005 Monkey News: LA Weekly’s List

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LA Weekly gives us a rundown of the top primate news stories of 2005.
This story is good:

Contagious Yawning
Science has yet to explain why humans yawn, or why we yawn when we see other people yawn. What we do now know is that both great apes and the lesser primates (macaques and lemurs) also yawn contagiously.

But my favorite is this:

Giganto
Gigantopithecus blacki (a.k.a. Giganto) was a prehistoric ape that stood 12 feet tall and weighed 1,200 pounds. Giganto’s fossil remains were first discovered in 1935 in a Hong Kong pharmacy, and paleontologists long thought the species died out a million years ago. But this year researchers learned that the creature lived as recently as 100,000 years ago — side by side with modern Homo sapiens, i.e., us. Could he still be roaming the forests of the Pacific Northwest?

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Gourmet Amigurumi

I’ve mentioned before Gourmet Amigurumi, the business run by Beth Doherty that makes great crochet animal dolls. I had Beth make this figure skating monkey for Christmas for Stephanie… along with a monkey for me, too.

If you look at Beth’s Flickr photos of her work, she’s got some really amazing dolls. She just recently created a really cute Chihuahua and an adorable penguin. Some of my favorites, though, are Angus the Monster, the Punk Bunny Rabbit, and the Hep Cat.

What’s really cool is how quickly she gets them done. She whipped up the monkey really quickly, and she hadn’t ever done ice skates before, so she had to figure them out. Even so, it was just a few weeks between the time I ordered and she got them to me. She seems to be getting a lot of business lately, so it might take a bit longer.

You can contact her through Flickr, or you can buy things from her shop.
Along the same lines, Jessica Hutch makes knitted dolls, including Robots.

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Goth Embroidery (and pirates, and monkeys!)

Sublime Stitching‘s site says, “This ain’t you gramma’s embroidery!” And they’re quite right. With patterns for everything from tikis, sushi bars, goth patterns, mexican wrestlers, pirates and monkeys, they make a really boring craft into something fun and hip. Well, okay, about as hip as embroidery can get, anyway.

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New Monkey Species Discovered

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Yeah! Scientists discover a new species of monkey in Africa. The BBC story includes a picture of the new guy, called the Highland Mangabey.

“This exciting discovery demonstrates once again how little we know about our closest living relatives, the nonhuman primates,” said Russell Mittermeier, chairman of the Primate Specialist Group of IUCN-The World Conservation Union’s Species Survival Commission.

“A large, striking monkey in a country of considerable wildlife research over the last century has been hidden right under our noses.”

In other monkey news, Tokyo, Japan is pursuing a renegade monkey on the loose in the streets of the city.

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Chinese women want to give birth in year of monkey

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Monkey
Monkey!!
Many expectant Chinese women are trying to delay the birth of their children until the Year of the Monkey begins next week because they think it will bring them luck, state media said.”

Because being born in the Year of the Monkey ROCKS. And being born in the Year of the Goat SUCKS!
In other monkey news, Monkeys invade Indian Embassy in Nepal. Bonus points because the article also contains the word “Katmandu.”

I love a good monkey invasion.

2022-03-13 Update:
I really had an obsessions with monkeys at one point. Not sure why. I was so enthusiastic, too. Also, Monkey invasions are bad. They often happen because humans encroach on animal’s territories. Now I’m an old grump.
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