A monkey gets critically ill, recovers, and then starts walking around on TWO FEET!
The monkey’s keepers suspect brain damage.
So I wuz thinkin’…monkey gets brain damage…then walks on two feet.
People walk on two feet… :eek:
Hmmmm…
On the other hand, you don’t see monkeys posting startling intellectual revelations like this on internet message boards.
And at about the same time, somebody (human) somewhere, suddenly started walking on all-fours. nobody could figure out why.
That’s evolution for you. We’re all descendants of a mutated brain-damaged monkey.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I was actually thinking about this too, but it was more along the lines of “monkey see, monkey do”.
What if there were at some point a common ancestor or two who reacted in a similar manner to illness or brain damage, and they were mimicked by other individuals in the population? If there were any sort of advantage to the upright posture in that environment, it could have been mimicked and taught the same way as using sticks as tools to fish for termites, etc. That would be enough wiggle room for selective pressure, with individuals who were good at it (ie quick learners or who’s proportions or skeletal compositions favored the behavior) would succeed and pass on their proto-walking genes and learned behaviors onto their offspring.
Just give the monkey proper high speed internet access. Then you’ll see…
Ook, ook.
Oops.
Threads like this make my vestigal tail twitch. Pass the bananas please…
Just don’t fling poo.
After first reading this story, I speculated that maybe the stomach ailment that almost killed Natasha Macaque might have something to do with her now upright gait. Perhaps, like someone who overcompensates for a bum leg, she now stands upright to relieve abdominal pain.
That said, here are a few links about Oliver Chimpanzee, who at one point was thought by some to a mutant chimp, or a human/chimp hybrid. :eek: The last link has a good photo of Oliver walking (though he is on a leash). Last I heard, he is quite old, but still alive.
Anyhoo…
Do or did you really have a vestigial tail, Chefguy? I only ask because I’ve long been tempted to start a thread asking if any posters have/had vestigial tails or other mutations, or personally knew others with mutations. (I guess I really enjoyed that one particular X-Files episode. 
)
Me? I seem to have an abnormally large cranium. But I think my brain is more swollen than large, which might explain my migraines. Anybody have power-drill I can borrow? (And I’m not being totally jocular about that last request. And I believe that’s the first time I’ve ever used the word “jocular”. 
)
Anyhoo…
No, but I’m into auto-erotic behavior.
stories about monkeys walking on two legs must be accompanied by a photo.
anyway. . .meh. . .let me know when he gets through typing Hamlet.
Well, somewhere out there, Dick Cheney is trembling in his loafers. The republicans have finally found a candidate who can make Bush seem intelligent and manly! And no one will accuse him of kowtowing to his VP…for a few months anyway…
Bush/Chimpanzee 2004!!!
That monkey started walking like a human because she wanted to make sure they didn’t feed her anymore of the monkey food that made her sick.
“Hmmmm, maybe if I walk upright they’ll give me some bacon and eggs instead of these rotten bananas…”
Am I the only one who started hearing Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra in reading the OP?
And the Monolith smiled.
YES!!!
FriarTed wins! I was sooooo hoping somebody would reference Strauss/2001, but I didn’t want to myself because, well, what would be the fun in that?
Carry on! (ook ook eep eep eep!)
Smile when you say that, pardner.
I have a double-jointed thumb, does that count?..
Man, all the cool kids have tails.
I’ve always wanted a prehensile tail. Everytime I’m trying to open a door while I’ve got two arms full of groceries… Or driving a standard transmission and wanting to change the radio at the same time. 
I told the Evolutionary comittee to keep the tails, but did they listen? :smack: