Sunday, May 11, 2014

Cacatian, Lean Angelo D. - Social Climbers

Cacatian, Lean Angelo D.                                                                                                                                            2013-57145
Social Climbers
We watched a documentary about monkeys and apes having social classes just like us humans. The documentary showed how monkeys are one of the nearest animals that could reach our intellectual capabilities. This was showed on how they built on socialization to be able to survive and have a stronger force that could last and live longer compared in being alone. In order to analyze their social structure we should first observe their actions. In the documentary there were a lot examples showed how they were very sociable beings and live around their social structures.
One of the ways that monkeys socialize is using their voice. Just like humans, they can use their voices to communicate with different monkeys in the group. One example is of a certain species of apes that screams to know who the dominant one is. The one who screams the loudest is the most dominant among them. They also use their voice to help one another be safe by warning them about predators, to protect their area with other groups of monkeys and also to have stronger bonds within the group that they wre in.
Another way that monkeys use to socialize with other monkeys is by grooming. A lot of monkeys use this as a way to be close to their comrades and also to be hygienic at the same time. One of the ways they clean themselves up is getting rid of bugs out of their fur. This takes hours and hours of their time in order for them to clean up another ape. Another way of them grooming is using leaves that have a certain amount of repellant against mosquitoes. The film showed how the monkeys could differentiate a normal trunk of leaves from a certain kind of leaves that has this repellant and when they finally got a hold of the leaves they share it with their fellow monkeys for them to have a guard against external forces prevented by the leaves’ content.
In the documentary they also showed how these monkeys could imitate different kind of movements and skills so that they form a culture that transcends to different generations of monkeys. One example is the art of cracking a nut that a certain species monkey uses. The monkeys use wood to pound the nut and open it, while other monkeys are experts of cracking a nut the others would try to imitate them and get the hang of it but according to the documentary a monkey should be at a certain age in order for it to acquire a new skills such as cracking a nut.
With this in mind we could definitely conclude that monkeys are very sociable creatures. They would have hard time climbing the food chain without first building themselves in their own social structures. I really learned a lot from this documentary and it made me wonder if these monkeys could become more like us in the future.

References:
”Monkey Social Structures”. Accessed May 9, 2014.

 http://www.monkeyworlds.com/monkey-social-structure/

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