Cincinnati Zoo Celebrates Gorilla Birth

Muke, the Cincinnati Zoo’s 24-year-old western lowland gorilla delivered a healthy baby gorilla at 11:37 p.m. Sunday night, August 13, inside her bedroom area at the Zoo’s Primate Center. Muke began showing early signs of labor around 7:00 p.m. Sunday evening and by 8:00 p.m. it was clear that Muke was in active labor. Primate Center Team Leader Ron Evans immediately notified the Zoo’s veterinarians and the rest of the Primate Center Staff. More than 3-1/2 hours later, Evans stood only a few feet away as Muke delivered her baby at 11:37 p.m.

Read more.

Can you think of a good gorilla name? Enter the baby naming contest!

from Science Daily

A new study suggests that prehistoric birds of prey made meals out of some of our earliest human ancestors.

Researchers drew this conclusion after studying more than 600 bones from modern-day monkeys. They had collected the bones from beneath the nests of African crowned eagles in the Ivory Coast's Tai rainforest. A full-grown African crowned eagle is roughly the size of an American bald eagle, which typically weighs about 10 to 12 pounds.

Punctures and scratches on many of the monkey skulls have led some researchers to rethink which animals may have preyed on our human ancestors, said W. Scott McGraw, the study's lead author and an associate professor of anthropology at Ohio State University.

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As if two tiny monkeys on a thumb weren't enough, there's an adorable Flickr group called Tiny Animals on Fingers.

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

A very rare pair of tiny twin pygmy marmosets were born this week at the Froso Zoo in Ostersund, Sweden. They are the world's smallest monkey, growing to just 35cm and weighing in at aroud 100 grams.

Read more.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Single male (red hair, long arms, interests include hanging in trees and grooming) seeks female for long-distance relationship and possibility of meeting up in future to help save species.

Zookeepers in the Netherlands are planning to hook up Dutch and Indonesian orangutans over the Internet and believe the link could at some stage be used as an online dating service where apes could get to know one another and keepers could work out whether they would be compatible mates.

First things first: A romantic dinner for two.

"We are going to set up an Internet connection between Indonesia and Apeldoorn so that the apes can see each other and, by means of pressing a button, be able to give one another food, for example," said Anouk Ballot, a spokeswoman for the Apenheul ape park in the central Dutch city of Apeldoorn.

She said the chance of two orangutans actually mating as a result of the online interaction was small due to the problem of transporting them between the Netherlands and Indonesia. "But I wouldn't rule it out completely," she told The Associated Press.

Read more.

A 22-year-old man from south London has been charged with the theft of a squirrel monkey from a zoo in Surrey.

The monkey was reported missing from Chessington World of Adventures on 17 July but was found two days later playing with children in Clapham.

Unemployed Marlon Brown, from Bowater Close, Brixton, was released on bail following his arrest by the Kingston burglary team on Wednesday morning.

He is due to appear before Kingston Magistrates' Court on 14 September.

The two-year-old Bolivian squirrel monkey, known as SpongeBob, was returned to the zoo after a member of the public found it being played with by children in Clapham.

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The clever crafters at Craftster.org recently celebrated the sock monkey with a contest to see who could come up with the most creative sock/monkey creature. The winner was this Mr. T Monkey, but some of the others are just as funny.

Check out this Princess Leia monkey:

And my personal favorite, Zombie monkey:

From The Herald Bulletin via Boing Boing:

Gold teeth have become a popular fashion trend among hip-hop stars and rap moguls in Hollywood. Dr. David Steele may have just given this fad a whole new twist when he gilded his feline’s choppers.

Sebastian is a year-old Persian with a long-haired, shiny black coat. Upon first glance, he looks like any other cat. Bending down to show some affection, though, you can’t help but notice the two gold teeth protruding from his lower jaw.

“His lower teeth grew in sticking out, which is not normal,” said Steele, an Alexandria dentist. “They are supposed to grow in just like our teeth.”

Deciding they might be knocked off or become a problem, Steele devised a plan. “I wanted to strengthen them with gold crowns,” he said.

Read more.

Ayla, a service monkey for the disabled, throws out the first pitch prior to a baseball game between the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park in Boston, Wednesday evening, Aug. 16, 2006

Bad Time For Monkey Jokes
At Allen Campaign Event, McCain Jokes About Monkey Flying A Plane

(CBS/AP) Sen. John McCain was in Norfolk on Wednesday for a rally and announcement of a new coalition in support of Sen. George Allen's campaign.

During the event, however, McCain made a joke about a monkey flying an airplane, the Hampton Roads Daily Press reports. This comment came as Allen fights criticism for having called opponent Jim Webb's campaign worker "macaca," which is a genus of monkey.

Read more.

A tarsier, the world's smallest primate, enjoys a crunchy snack.

From Wired News

Across the border from Chinese-occupied Tibet, the tech infrastructure in this high mountain village is a mess.

But a former Silicon Valley dot-commer and members of the underground security group Cult of the Dead Cow are working with local Tibetan exiles to change that using recycled hardware, solar power, open-source software and nerd ingenuity . . .

Some of the technical challenges they faces are unique. This may be one of the
only networks in the world where antennas must be monkey-proofed.

"Monkeys are everywhere," says Yahel Ben-David. "Often, you'll see a huge, gorilla-sized monkey hang on to an antenna, swing from it, eat it, try to break it. We lost a lot of cables that way, but now we use very strong equipment so that even monkeys can't break it."

It is TMI's corporate policy that idle hands cause mischief, therefore, CRAFT magazine will become required employee reading beginning in October 2006.

Due to an unusually hot summer in China, zoo authorities have been offering chilled and frozen fruits to monkeys to keep them from getting heat stroke.

{A pair of golden monkeys enjoy iced fruits to prevent sunstroke at the Wuhan Zoo, C. China's Hubei Province on August 14, 2006.}

{Several squirrel monkeys cool themselves off with ice-lolly as record high temperatures hit Hefei Safari Park, E. China's Anhui Province on August 15, 2006.}

{This summer is too hot, thus Jinan Zoo prepared special summer feast of watermelons and peaches for the snub-nosed monkeys in the zoo on July 20.}

To celebrate the news that Ikea is coming to Cincinnati in Fall 2007, here's a little ditty by Jonathan Coulton.

IKEA

Long ago in days of yore
It all began with a god named Thor
There were Vikings and boats
And some plans for a furniture store
It¹s not a bodega, it¹s not a mall
And they sell things for apartments smaller than mine
As if there were apartments smaller than mine

Ikea: just some oak and some pine and a handful of Norsemen
Ikea: selling furniture for college kids and divorced men
Everyone has a home
But if you don¹t have a home you can buy one there

So rent a car or take the bus
Lay your cash down and put your trust
In the land where the furniture folds to a much smaller size
Billy the bookcase says hello
And so does a table whose name is Ingo
And the chair is a ladder-back birch but his friends call him Karl

Ikea: just some oak and some pine and a handful of Norsemen
Ikea: selling furniture for college kids and divorced men
Everyone has a home
But if you don¹t have a home you can buy one there

Ikea: plywood, brushed steel
Ikea: meatballs, tasty
Ikea: Allen wrenches
All of them for free
All of them for me

I'm sorry I said Ikea sucks
I just bought a table for 60 bucks
And a chair and a lamp
And a shelf and some candles for you
I was a doubter just like you
Till I saw the American dream come true
In New Jersey, they got a goddamned Swedish parade

Ikea: just some oak and some pine and a handful of Norsemen
Ikea: selling furniture for college kids and divorced men
Everyone has a home
But if you don¹t have a home you can buy one there

"I cannot endure this hideous wicked stupidity; to be at once cruel and a failure is too much. Our President is a disaster and will get worse; never trust a Texan farther than you can throw a rhino."

A pithy quote about W? Nope, a comment about Lyndon Johnson by Martha Gellhorn—a foreign correspondent during three wars and wife of Ernest Hemingway, among others—in a recently released collection of letters.

The archives of Wondermark gently awakened me this morning. It's always nice to find something good and established that's a complete surprise. No monkeys (so far) but a fair number of cat jokes.

Tiny Monkey Industries had to catch a flight to Boston yesterday morning. Yup, the same morning British authorities broke up a plot to bomb airplanes with liquid explosives. But instead of celebrating the fact that the threat was averted, the TV was wall-to-wall red-level terror.

In fact, all the local stations were camped outside of CVG wailing and gnashing their teeth. So, in a panic, TMI left early for the airport and drove 80mph to get there. So just how long did it take to clear security on this woeful day?

Exactly 4 1/2 minutes.

When we risk our lives driving too fast on the highway only to sit around for two hours with nothing to do but watch CNN repeat the same thing over and over again about this brand new threat, then the terrorists really have won.

TMI's favorite commentator/philosopher, Ze Frank, shared a similar outlook on yesterday's episode of The Show.

This is Tiny Monkey Industries, sitting around at the airport, so you don't have to.

Here we see Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey. Apparently a star of stage and screen and a good reason to visit Texas. It's his serious Marlboro Man face that really makes this work for me.

Update: BoingBoing was only slightly behind TMI in posting this important news. Although their original story on weird animals/plants was the reason TMI went looking for more information in the first place.

Via Fark and the Philadelphia Inquirer - here's a wee little GLT, and some more pics.












For reference purposes, the bigger monkey there is actually very small.

Earlier this year, on a trip to Madison, WI, my husband and I went to the Henry Vilas Zoo. It was small for a zoo, but it wasn't crowded and the exhibits were designed to offer close looks at all the animals. Plus, it was free! The best thing we saw, besides a bunch of lions frolicking in the snow, was a family of tiny Golden Lion Tamarins. These mini-simians weigh less than 1.5 pounds and could easily fit in the palm of your hand (although I expect they'd bit your fingers.)

I was was watching one very small tamarin as it moved around its enclosure, jumping from branch to branch on a small tree limb, coming closer and closer to the glass. Then we were eye to eye. The tiny monkey looked right at me and cocked it's head to the side.



It was cold outside and my throat was feeling dry. As I moved my giant hand to my mouth to stifle a cough, the tamarin threw up its tiny hands, made a very funny face and jumped away.

This year, the Zoo marks the 21st year of its free-ranging GLT program. In June, a GLT family was released in Beaver Valley for the summer. The family includes a male, Eduardo, and a female, Laranja, who were free-ranging last summer, plus their female twins, who were born in March. The outdoor exhibit includes a nest box, ropes that mimic the jungle vines of the tamarins' native Brazilian forest habitat, and food stations. Learn more.

Check out Dry Soda. It comes in four flavors: rhubarb, lemongrass, lavender and kumquat.

In the Midst of Gorillas
from The Cincinnati Enquirer

While the rest of the world is sleeping or watching the late news, what's Arlene Thorwarth doing? Staying up until 2 a.m. watching a pregnant gorilla sleep.

She'll do it this week, and next, and many more after that, and considers every minute of it a privilege.

Thorwarth is waiting for a gorilla birth at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. Muke (pronounced MEW-kee), more than 8 months into an 8½-month gestation, is due Aug. 12. It will be the 24-year-old western lowland gorilla's third baby and the first for the father, Jomo, 15, a silverback on loan from Toronto.

He's also the father of the baby gorilla that Samantha, 36, is carrying. The mother of six and grandmother of 11 is due in mid-September.Both of the females spend their days romping around Gorilla World and are constantly being watched.

Thorwarth, 72, of Clifton retired from the pet-sitting business a few years ago. She is one of 50 volunteers who have maintained a 24/7 gorilla watch since late July, observing Muke in the final stages of her pregnancy. Working in four-hour shifts and armed with clipboards, she and fellow volunteers take note of everything they see.

This animated music video has been circulating around the web for a while, but I never get tired of running across it.

Yes, this is a screen from a real game. But Kingdom of Loathing isn't just any game. It's both silly and incredibly addictive, full of pop-culture and nerd-culture references. If you ever played D&D in grade school, KOL will bring back fond/disturbing memories. Plus, who doesn't love stick figures with attitude?

Illustrator Kevin Cornell has a wicked wit and talent out the wazoo. Mojo the sock monkey is one of several recurring characters that show up on his site Bearskinrug. Mojo is also the star of his very own book.

After mixing up a batch of Rhubarb Liqueur, I still had a bunch of rhubarb left. So I poked around the internet and found a few Rhubarb Crunch recipes. I messed around with them and came up with this:



Rhubarb Oatmeal Crunch

Crust
2 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 cups slow cook oatmeal (raw)
2 cups brown sugar (packed)
1 cup unsalted butter

Filling
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups rhubarb (cut into half-inch pieces)

Mix flour, oatmeal, brown sugar and butter until crumbly. Press 1/2 of the mixture into a 9-inch-square pan. Layer rhubarb on top. Combine sugar, cornstarch, water and vanilla in a saucepan. Brin to a boil and cook until thick and clear. Pour sauce over rhubarb. Top with the other half of the flour and oatmeal mixture. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.

Let cool before serving. Top with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

YUM!

I bought a book about making cordials a few months ago and finally started to experiment with it today. The first recipe I tried was Rhubarb Liqueur.

1.5 cups water
4 cups fresh rhubarb, cut into 1-inch pieces (I found the rhubarb at a Farmer's Market)
3 cups sugar
1 teaspoon orange zest
2 cups vodka (I used Barton Charcoal Filtered Vodka)
2 cups blush wine (I used Little Penguin White Shiraz)

Bring water, rhubarb, sugar and orange zest to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. When sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and let stand until just warm. Pour into a clean jar (that will hold at least 2 quarts) with a tight-fitting lid. Add vodka and wine. Cover and let stand in a cool, dark place for 2 weeks.

This is what it looks like at this stage:




After 2 weeks, use a fine-mesh stainter to strain out solids. Discard. Transfer liqueur to clean container, cover and let stand for 2 more weeks. Filter into final container.

Based on previous experience making liqueurs, they usually get better with time.