Originally posted by dude34
...or you smart as a monkey 
Monkeys are nearly as smart as us.
Or is it the other way around?
There are chimpanzees that know sign language, primates that help people with disabilities, and there's even those ones that do funny things to entertain us. "Look at the funny monkey smoking! He thinks he's people, ha ha ha!"
Honestly, monkeys shouldn't smoke, they should swing through the jungles, eat bananas, forage for grubs, groom each other, and hunt with spears. Wait a second, monkeys using spears? I though only humans could do that?
"It's not uncommon to have chimps use tools. But to use them in the context of hunting" is nearly unheard of. Jill Pruetz, an anthropology professor from Iowa State University had a chance to observe this unique primate behavior.
Though it was only observed once, a chimpanzee skewering a Bush-baby (a small Lemur like mammal that lives in hollowed trees and the like) in lieu of a meal. A surprise for the scientific community. But because this behavior was only observed once, researchers cannot conclusively say what caused it. Was this chimp out hunting, or did it simply using a basic tool? Conscious intention or dumb luck? We would all like to think that the primate in question knew exactly what it was doing. "Oh, oh, uh. Me stick take, chew, chew, point. Poke food, poke food food."
Pruetz's team observed chimp's in the jungles of Fongoli, Senegal, where they noticed the use of spears was more common among adolescent females from ages 10 to 13 where they had to compete with the stronger, more physically dominant males of one particular group. They made these, and other related observations from March 2005 until July 2006 and recently published their findings in the on line version of the scientific journal Current Biology.
"It's a way of accessing protein or meat that is a creative solution to this problem," she said. A chimp would strip the leaves from a branch, then chew the end to a rough point with their teeth. Pretty simple, yet pretty smart. But Chimpanzees do commonly use sticks and rocks as tools. Sometimes they will use a stick to widen a hole in the dirt to find a juicy grub or termite. Many primates have been observed using rocks to smash open shells to find the tasty nut inside. There are even some birds, such as the Kea (Nestor notabilis) from the alpine regions of New Zealand, that will use sticks as tools to get food. The Octopus is quite smart as well, but does have a difficult time finding a decent stick to use.
In fact, early humans didn't start to develop higher thought until the advent of hunting. It seems that the added nutrients in protein rich bone marrow gave our brains that kick start that helped us to evolve into what we are today. So, give these chimps 3 or four million years and they might have a very rudimentary language. Wait 5 or 6 million years and they'll be forming tribes. Wait 10 million years and it'll be Planet of the Ape all over again.
though my dots had 10 unspent sp, 18 tp and 20 bt and I just didn't meant to scout such a loser 
