{ Animal House Monkey Peeler }

{ Shawn Wolfe, Cornelius Poster, 1998 | “The Cornelius poster happens to be one of my personal favorites. Love those shaved legs!” (Shawn Wolfe, email to pantherhouse, 2000) | Cornelius, born Keigo Oyamada | Solex’ Westcoast tour 1998 }

If gorillas could fly… Ok… so it doesn’t have the same ring as the classic “If Assholes Could Fly, This Place Would Be An Airport“…but in the better news of advertising… the sequel to Cadbury’s “Gorilla Ad” is coming this Saturday…

Of course, it is not a sequel — no gorilla this time — but it is created by Fallon’s Juan Cabral – the same dude who did the original Gorilla ad that took the internets by storm and won a whole slew of awards in the UK.

Dubbed “Airport Trucks” — here is a description (courtesy of Brand Republic):

The new ad, which like “gorilla” has been created by Fallon, is described as a “magical airport truck race” in which a small one-man vehicle plays the role of an underdog in a midnight race against an assortment of bigger and faster trucks, such as a baggage transporter and motorised stairs.

The ad is light-hearted and fun in line with its predecessor, but unlike “gorilla” it will not feature a Phil Collins track. (…)

The “gorilla” ad, which featured a man in a gorilla suit playing drums to Phil Collins’ ‘In the Air Tonight’, quickly became a cult hit last year. Cadbury partly attributed a 5% sales lift during 2007 to its popularity.

{ Agency Spy | Continue reading }

photo { Mary Ellen Mark }

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In Harry Harlow’s initial experiments, infant monkeys were separated from their mothers at six to twelve hours after birth and were raised instead with substitute or “surrogate” mothers made either of heavy wire mesh or of wood covered with cloth.

Both mothers were the same size, but the wire mother had no soft surfaces while the other mother was cuddly – covered with foam rubber and soft terry cloth. Both mothers were also warmed by an electric light placed inside them.

In one experiment both types of surrogates were present in the cage, but only one was equipped with a nipple from which the infant could nurse. Some infants received nourishment from the wire mother, and others were fed from the cloth mother. Even when the wire mother was the source of nourishment (and a source of warmth provided by the electric light), the infant monkey spent a greater amount of time clinging to the cloth surrogate.

These results led researchers to believe the need for closeness and affection goes deeper than a need for warmth.

(…)

When the experimental subjects were frightened by strange, loud objects, such as teddy bears beating drums, monkeys raised by terry cloth surrogates made bodily contact with their mothers, rubbed against them, and eventually calmed down. Harlow theorized that they used their mothers as a “psychological base of operations,” allowing them to remain playful and inquisitive after the initial fright had subsided.

In contrast, monkeys raised by wire mesh surrogates did not retreat to their mothers when scared. Instead, they threw themselves on the floor, clutched themselves, rocked back and forth, and screamed in terror.

These activities closely resembled the behaviors of autistic and deprived children frequently observed in institutions as well as the pathological behavior of adults confined to mental institutions, Harlow noted.

{ University of Oregon | a2z psychology | Wikipedia }

{ Gorilla Drummer Ad, Cadbury’s Dairy Milk }

Marc van Roosmalen is a world-renowned primatologist whose research in the Amazon has led to the discovery of five species of monkeys and a new primate genus. But precisely because of that work, van Roosmalen was recently sentenced to nearly 16 years in prison and jailed in Manaus, Brazil. (…)

Fears of biopiracy, loosely defined as any unauthorized acquisition or transport of genetic material or live flora and fauna, are deep and longstanding in Brazil. Nearly a century ago, for example, the Amazon rubber boom collapsed after Sir Henry Wickham, a British botanist and explorer, spirited rubber seeds out of Brazil and sent them to colonies in Ceylon and Malaya (now Sri Lanka and Malaysia), which quickly dominated the international market.

In the 1970s, the Squibb pharmaceutical company used venom from the Brazilian arrowhead viper to help develop captopril, used to treat hypertension and congestive heart failure, without payment of the royalties Brazilians think are due them. And more recently, Brazilian Indian tribes have complained that samples of their blood, taken under circumstances they say were unethical, were being used in genetic research around the world.

Brazil has in recent years passed legislation to curb such practices. National sentiment favors the laws, but scientists complain that they go too far, are too vague, confer too much power on the authorities who have no scientific knowledge and have created a presumption that every researcher is engaged in biopiracy. (…)

Over the years, van Roosmalen has clashed frequently with the Brazilian authorities, including his superiors at the government-supported National Institute for Amazon Research, or INPA, in Manaus. He was once detained during a boat trip for transporting monkeys without a permit, and when he sent monkey scat abroad for analysis at a laboratory, he also ran afoul of the law. Eventually he was fired from INPA.

To raise money to continue his research, he made an offer on his Web site to name the species of monkeys he had discovered after benefactors, who included Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. That has been a practice common since Linnaeus created the modern system of biological classification in the 18th century, and kings and dukes financed expeditions in return for taxonomic immortality. But the Brazilian authorities considered it illegal, and it formed the basis of one of the charges of which van Roosmalen was convicted.

{ International Herald Tribune | Continue reading }

illustration { Bansky, Keep it Real, 2002 }

related { The GoldenPalace.com Monkey }

{ Cowboy Monkey Performs At Rodeo }

Plot Summary
When a mechanical replica of King Kong is unable to dig for the highly radioactive Element X at the North Pole, the evil Doctor Who and his sponsor Madame Piranha (Madame X in the American release) decide to kidnap the real Kong. As an insurance policy they kidnap Lt. Susan Miller as well as her boyfriend Lt. Commander Jiro Nomura and Cmdr. Carl Nelson. Kong develops a crush on Susan.

Kong later escapes and heads for Tokyo. Susan and the others also escape. Who and his minions follow him and activate Mechani-Kong in order to recapture him. Susan is then grabbed by the robot and is taken to the top of Tokyo Tower and a battle ensues.

Memorable quotes for Kingukongu no gyakushu (1967)
Madame Piranha: You’re a failure.
Dr. Who: Not a chance of that!

{ Kingukongu no gyakushu, 1967 }

{ Jill Greenberg }

We all know not to feed the animals that when visiting the zoo. Now the Antwerp Zoo (Belgium) has urged visitors to, please, stop staring at the chimpanzees.

A new set of rules was posted outside the chimp enclosure at the city zoo urging visitors, especially regular daily ones, not to form a bond with a particular male chimp named ‘Cheetah.’ He was raised by humans but is now trying to forge a social bond with the other seven apes at the animal park, a zoo official said Wednesday.

“We ask, we inform our daily visitors and other visitors that one of the monkeys is particularly open for human contact,” zoo spokeswoman Ilse Segers told Associated Press Television. “He is raised by humans in a family and therefore we are trying to integrate him, to try to get more social integration with the group.” She said that Cheetah’s continued interaction with humans was “delaying the social integration of the animal in the group,” and isolating the ape from the others.

A sign posted on the glass enclosure requests onlookers not to stare at the apes. “Look away when an animal seeks to make contact with you, or take a step back. Some individuals are more interested with visitors than their own kind.” { AP | Continue reading }