One Way to Settle a Dispute

The Aborigines of Australia have a unique method for settling land disputes. And if the evidence of ancient aboriginal bones dated at up to 11,000 years old indicate that this tradition goes back a long, long way.

It seems that when a property dispute arose between two Aborigines, the opponents resorted to heavy wooden clubs in order to settle the quarrel. The men face each other and take turns swinging their clubs at one another’s head, with the other man attempting to parry the blow. The disagreement is considered settled when one of the men is so seriously injured that he cannot continue.

The opponents are usually young adults who are seeking land on which to build homes for themselves and their families. It is interesting that almost half of all Aboriginal skulls found in southern Australia show evidence of deep head wounds, usually on the front or on the left side of the skull. These are often accompanied by healed forearm fractures which may represent attempts to parry blows.

This behavior reminds me of the actions of sheep, goats, and other animals who routinely fight for mates or territory by charging at one another in an attempt to physically overwhelm or overcome their rivals. Perhaps, in some ways, humans aren’t so different from other animals after all.

The Ghosts Who Kept Working

I heard this story a few years ago from an eyewitness.  My experiences with ghosts have always been pretty standard.  They wander through rooms (and walls), usually not doing anything in particular.  But these ghosts made themselves useful. 

Read the whole story here

South America’s Animal Shaped Mounds

 Perhaps the most famous effigy mound in the Americas is the gigantic Serpent Mound in Ohio. And it was long thought that these curious structures, constructed by the Adena people, were unique to North America. But a series of mounds has been discovered in several coastal valleys in Peru, and there is evidence that they may be as much as 4,000 years old. And some of them are enormous.

One of the mounds depicts an orca. Another, located in the Chillon Valley, appears to be a condor.  Nearby is a figure that looks like a cross between a cougar and a cayman or alligator. Both seem to be deliberately oriented.  The condor points toward the most extreme orientation of the Milky Way while the cougar-cayman points to where the sun rises on the morning of the June solstice. Two other birdlike figures in the Casma Valley also point toward the June solstice.

The discoverer of the mounds, anthropologist Robert Benfer, formerly of the University of Missouri, found the mounds by studying satellite photographs. He has so far explored only five valleys located along the Peruvian coast. In addition to the large figures, he has found many smaller mounds. He plans to return to the valleys to gather material for radiocarbon dating in order to establish more accurate dates for the sites. He is also eager to explore other valleys along the Peruvian coast in the hope of finding even more effigies.

Here is another interesting fact about these South American mounds. The famous Serpent Mound in Ohio is believed to have been built somewhere between 1000 BC and 1000 AD. If Benfer is right about the age of the Peruvian effigies and they are around 4,000 years old, then they are much older than their North American counterparts. Were these structures built by two different peoples with the same ideas, or was there communication between the two continents? And why would there have been such a lapse in time between the construction of the South American mounds and those built in North America? Hopefully, we’ll find out more sometime in the near future.

There is a photo of the orca mound here

Mysterious Apes in the Republic of Congo

What looks like a chimpanzee, eats like a chimpanzee, seldom climbs trees and makes nests on the ground like a gorilla? The answer is, nobody is quite sure.

Part of the problem in identifying these peculiar animals is that some of their behaviors appear to be more like those of gorillas, which currently do not seem to inhabit the region.

Skulls brought to Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren in 1908 were re-examined in 1970 and anthropologist Colin Groves determined that they were identical to the skulls of western gorillas. A much more recent skull recovered by wildlife photographer and conservationist Karl Ammann had the pronounced forehead ridge characteristic of gorillas while the rest of the skull bore a remarkable resemblance to those of chimpanzees.

Adding to the confusion is the animals’ diet. Unlike gorillas, which generally dine on various types of leaves, analysis fecal material shows that the mystery apes eat a diet rich in fruit.

Efforts are underway to determine whether these animals, known as Bondo mystery apes, are giant chimpanzees, some type of chimpanzee-gorilla hybrid, or an as-yet unidentified new subspecies of great ape. They are reclusive, like gorillas, and no live animals have been captured. Ammann is in the process of habituating a group of these ground-nesting chimps by offering them sugar cane.

The world of the great apes still holds mysteries. Are these animals chimpanzees who have somehow incorporated gorilla-like behaviors into their culture, or are they some completely new type of animal that developed its own unique adaptations to its environment? Karl Ammann is devoting his efforts toward finding answers. It will be interesting to see what he finds out.

For more information visit

The Cincinnati Blob - Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?

Experts are trying to figure out whether a huge fossil found by an amateur palaeontologist in northern Kentucky is an animal or a plant. They’re pretty sure it isn’t a mineral.


The 450-million-year-old fossil is more than 6 feet long and 3 feet wide, and weighs about 150 pounds. Intricate patterns on its rippled surface resemble the skin of a bird, but some parts look more like fish scales. Whatever it was, it apparently had no bones, so it most likely was not a vertebrate, and was undoubtedly a relatively simple life form. Another interesting piece of the puzzle is the presence of small trilobite fossils found on the surface of the fossil, which has been dubbed Godzillus.

So far, suggestions as to what it might have been include a type of huge algae, a jellyfish, or possibly a broken piece of coral or sponge. The Cincinnati area was covered by a 100- to 200-foot deep sea at the time this animal (or plant) lived, so the researchers are concentrating on trying to identify what kind of sea life this unique specimen represents.

As of now, it is much too early to expect any definitive results from the investigation. Photos of the whatever-it-is can be found here, and more information is available here

Tool-Using Monkeys?

Many years ago, it was thought that human beings were different from all other animals because people used tools and animals did not. But new information shows us that we are not alone in using tools.


Many of us have seen how otters float on their backs while breaking open shellfish by hammering them on a stone held on their stomachs. Now, it seems, otters aren’t the only ones who use stones to harvest oysters and other shellfish.

Thai scientists were studying the impact of the tsunami that ravaged the southeast Asian coast in December 2004. They noticed a pair of female long-tailed macaques using some type of object to crack open mollusk shells so they could scoop out and eat the animals inside. Curious, they landed and discovered cracked oyster shells scattered on the beach along with axe-shaped stones that the monkeys had used to break them open.

Further investigation revealed that this behavior was common among the macaques living along this stretch of coast, and that the monkeys were regular visitors to the beach. It seems that the macaques not only cracked shells open with their tools, but they also used them to dislodge their prey from the rocks. They also discovered that the monkeys had a special fondness for crabs, which were also broken open using their stones.

Interviews with local islanders showed that the animals’ behavior was a year-round practice. They also said that when the macaques were foraging in mangrove swamps which did not contain suitable stones, the monkeys used empty oyster shells in their place.

Surprisingly, the long-tailed macaques’ odd behavior had been reported 120 years before by Alfred Carpenter of the Marine Survey Office in Bombay, India. In an article written for the journal Nature, Carpenter described how macaques living on islands of the Mergui Archipelago in South Burma were already using stone ‘hammers’ to crack open oyster shells. He also said that the monkeys frequently carried their stones up to 80 yards, which indicates that the monkeys were very careful in their tool selection. Somehow, though, his observations were either overlooked, or not taken seriously, until the new information was published in 2007.

How many other animals are using tools? Many new examples are coming to light and I’ll be investigating these claims over the next several months.

The World’s Only Venomous Primate

The little primate known as the slow loris, or ‘little fireface’ in parts of Java, was, until recently, a fairly obscure animal known primarily to researchers. It is, without doubt, one of the cutest little creatures you will ever see, and many people are adopting them as pets. As it turns out, not only is this little animal in serious danger, but it can be dangerous to humans as well.


The little lorises suddenly became famous when a video posted on YouTube showing one of the little animals being tickled suddenly went viral. Many viewers commented on how cute they were, with their huge eyes and gentle looking faces, and many expressed a desire to adopt one. But there are a few things potential owners should know about the animals and the way they are treated.

The trade in slow lorises is actually illegal. They are relatively slow-moving and seem to be very docile. But when aroused, they secrete venom from a patch on their elbow, mixing it with their saliva. If they bite, the mixture is injected into the wound, causing an allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis, which can be fatal. Traders know this, and frequently yank the animals’ teeth out using nail clippers, pliers, or wire cutters.

The slow loris is a shy and secretive animal found in a number of countries surrounding Indonesia. They have a few notable peculiarities, such as extra vertebrae and two tongues.

One researcher, Anna Nekaris, is spearheading an effort to help these amazing little animals. You can read her story here