Monkey see, monkey do

From an article posted on New Scientist:

Pier Ferrari at the University of Parma, Italy, and colleagues tested 21 newborn macaques by holding each in front of a researcher who made various facial expressions.

At one day old, none of the infants showed any imitation. By day three, however, infants started to copy the researchers' expressions, including tongue protrusions, mouth opening and lip smacking -- all typical macaque expressions.

By two weeks, all imitative behaviour had ceased, showing the imitation period in the monkeys is far shorter than for great apes. However, the researchers note that macaques may copy other macaques for longer.

The study shows the capacity for imitation occurred earlier in the primate evolutionary tree than previously thought, the researchers argue, and before the rhesus monkey ancestor split from the human lineage, about 25 million years ago.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• baby
• macaque
• monkey
• imitate
• new
• scientist

[ILovePeanutButter718]

lol i love monkeys xD

[CursedLiving]

Haha its looks like the monkey is thinking "What the hell are you doing?" XD

[TheJasonDR]

that looks fake

[rachelcapt225]

Go fuck yourself animal rights people. Let those who want a monkey as a family member do it without your negativity. The monkey can be happy.

[hellokitty4me]

Poor lab monkey later on he'll be tortured into wearing toxic chemicals till he drops dead. Stop Animal Cruelty.

[tasteegold7772]

@fuckusername2000 most likely is the sons of bastards!..cant even look at scientists anymore cause thats all i think about.

[okamiwolf250]

@pinkhazey ever heard of "britches the monkey"? Google it.

[peepo9000]

haha watch 00:30 I swear the monkey almost facepalms and then buries it's face in the towel like "Fine Ill do it..."

[philos4r]

am sure that monkey did the magnum look from zulander lmao

[Eveoman]

That is so adorable. Mirror neurons FTW!

[Dhragonfly]

it looks posessed (black eyes), and/or alien-like.

[UnoriginalFTW]

OMG THAT IS SO FUCKING CUTE D: