The world"s earliest #Baboon was located in #MalapaCave -- and it"s the first of this kind of find - http://clapway.com/2015/08/23/earliest-baboon-specimen-found-in-malapa-cave-131/

In the years that the Malapa Cave has been producing archaeological finds for the scientific community, it has once again provided another fossil for scientists to ponder. News about the earliest baboon specimen that was found in Malapa Cave came to light on the 19th of August.

WHAT LIES IN THE MALAPA CAVE?

The press release on this discovery discusses that the fossil specimen was the earliest baboon species found to date. The earliest baboon specimen dated as far back as around two million years ago.

Previous finds within the Malapa Cave include the Australopithecus sediba which marked a new species of human ancestry. Although this new earliest baboon specimen does not contribute to what is known about the human ancestry and evolution, it marks another find in the cave’s book.

THE EARLIEST BABOON SPECIES

The earliest baboon fossil specimen was a partial cranium that was described in the paper released in the PLOS journal as the only non-hominin fossil to be recovered in the Malapa Cave location as of yet. But the finding of this fossil in a cave where only hominin fossils had been found previously is not much of a surprise to researchers of the study. One researcher noted that baboons and hominin species have co-existed at various points in history and are evident in several fossil finds in Africa.

This little interesting nugget contributes greatly to the overall baboon evolution in South Africa and helps science gauge when the modern baboon began to mark its appearance with a better timeline. Researchers also mentioned that the divergent of the baboons of the bygone era began to the modern baboons of today began around 1.8 to 2.2 million years ago, around the same time the new fossil was estimated to be.

Also, the paper also mentions that the earliest baboon specimen had some indications of similarities in the anatomy to the modern baboon. The find is also exceedingly fortunate as previous finds were brittle or heavily fragmented, preventing intense study on the fossils.

It is the hope of the researchers that future fossils of the earliest baboon specimen will be found.

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For the best of Clapway this week, check out New in Review:

 

Earliest Baboon Specimen Found in Malapa Cave

Study: Baboons Make Democratic Group Decisions - http://clapway.com/2015/06/19/study-baboons-make-democratic-group-decisions-987/

Thanks to a recent study published in the journal Science, researchers have found that baboons make their travel decisions democratically when there is dissent as to which way to go. The discovery could reveal much about the evolution of decision-making in groups of hierarchal social animals (including humans) by answering questions such as “Do certain members lead the group?” and “What happens when there’s a disagreement?”

Tracking decision-making in the wild was no easy proposition.

The main problem with finding the answers to questions like the ones above had long been that the observation of animal social behavior in nature had proven difficult. Baboons were seen as ideal candidates for a behavioral study due to their individuality, hierarchal society structure, and the fact that they travel in troops. Yet, when researchers would go into the field to conduct such studies, they’d be unable to gather information on more than one or two animals at the same time, which limited understanding about how the animals act collectively. So, the researchers had to think outside the box about observing the baboons’ decision-making process.

Scientists trapped baboons, fit them with GPS collars.

In order to study baboon society, scientists set traps near the trees where a troop of around 30 olive baboons was sleeping. 25 of them were fitted with GPS tracking collars and let go, allowing the team of researchers to accurately track what would happen when travel decisions would have to be made. For example, if a leading baboon went one way and another went another way, what would happen? Who would the troop follow?

Majority rules, not social status.

The scientists’ findings were interesting. If the angle between the paths of the two leading baboons was narrow, the rest of them would follow a middle path between the two. If that angle was too large to allow for this, the troop members would pick one direction. Generally, they’d follow the leader with the biggest group, even if the size difference in the two groups was as small as one single primate. Apparently, the baboon troop did not take into account social status when it came to choosing a leader to follow. Their behavior acts like a showcase of the difference between leadership and social status, two concepts that people often confuse with each other. The study has been extremely important in finding how decisions are made in groups of animals, and may lead to the discovery of patterns in group behaviors of a wide range of other species.

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Though he may not be as democratic as a baboon, the MUSIO robot is definitely way cuter. And he definitely makes a better house pet.

Study: Baboons Make Democratic Group Decisions