News/Press releases

Contact: Sandra Jacob (E-Mail: info at eva.mpg.de, phone: +49 (0) 341-3550 122)

January 26, 2010: Altruism in forest chimpanzees

Max Planck researchers report 18 cases of adoption of orphaned youngsters by group members in Taï forest chimpanzees. Half of the orphans were adopted by males.

In recent years, extended altruism towards unrelated group members has been proposed to be a unique characteristic of human societies. Support for this proposal came from experimental studies with captive chimpanzees. A team of researchers with the Department of Primatology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig/Germany) now reports 18 cases of adoption of orphaned youngsters by group members in Taï forest chimpanzees. Half of these orphans were adopted by males and remarkably only one of these proved to be the father. Such adoptions by adults can last for years and imply extensive care towards the orphans. These observations reveal that, under the appropriate socio-ecologic conditions, chimpanzees care for unrelated group members and that altruism is more extensive in wild populations than was suggested by captive studies (PLoS ONE, January 26, 2010).

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December 15, 2009: More than a jump to the left

Study on memory for dance moves discovers substantial cross-cultural diversity in human cognition

If your dancing instructor asked you to step left, you would swiftly comply. But how would you react of he asked you to step South? In a new study, a cross-disciplinary team of the Max Planck Institutes for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen, Netherlands) and Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig) found that remembering movements of one's own body varies drastically across human cultures. (Current Biology, December 14, 2009) 

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September 16, 2009: Evidence that Priming Affiliation Increases Helping Behavior in Infants as Young as 18 Months

In a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Harriet Over and Malinda Carpenter of Germany’s Max Planck Institute found that priming infants with subtle cues to affiliation increases their tendency to be helpful.

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July 7, 2009: „Fish on the Menu“

The isotopic analysis of a bone from one of the earliest modern humans in Asia, the 40,000 year old skeleton from Tianyuan Cave in the Zhoukoudian region of China (near Beijing), by an international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, the Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and Washington University in Saint Louis has shown that this individual was a regular fish consumer (PNAS, 07.07.2009).

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June 17, 2009: „One million people for Apes“

More than 20 000 people from all over the world have already signed the Manifesto for Apes and nature (mAn) which was launched on 4 April 2008 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. To collect further signatures for this important conservation project for animals and nature, the initiators of the manifesto including amongst others researchers working with Professor Christophe Boesch from the Department of Primatology at the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology have now published an impressive video clip.

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June 15, 2009: Spectacular discovery of first-ever Dutch Neanderthal, the first fossil hominin ever yielded by a sub-marine site

Fossil skull fragment unveiled by Minister Plasterk (The Netherlands) in National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden

For the first time ever, a fossil of a Neanderthal has been discovered in the Netherlands. The skull fragment, over 40,000 years old, with its
characteristically thick Neanderthal eyebrow ridge was found off the coast of Zeeland, dredged up from the bottom of the North Sea. Huge quantities of fossil bones have been brought to the surface from this seabed since 1874,
however, this is the first time a Neanderthal fossil has been found. The unique
discovery was officially unveiled on the 15th of June by Ronald Plasterk
(Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science) at the Rijksmuseum van
Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) in Leiden, where it is on display
to the public starting from June 16th.

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April 21, 2009: "You will give birth in pain": Neanderthals too

The virtual reconstruction of a Neanderthal woman’s birth canal reveals
insights into the evolution of human child birth.

Researchers from the University of California at Davis (USA) and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany) present a virtual reconstruction of a female Neanderthal pelvis from Tabun (Israel). Although the size of Tabun’s reconstructed birth canal shows that Neanderthal childbirth was about as difficult as in present-day humans, the shape indicates that Neanderthals retained a more primitive birth mechanism than modern humans. The virtual reconstruction of the pelvis from Tabun is going to be the first of its kind to be available for download on the internet for everyone interested in the evolution of humankind (PNAS, April 20th, 2009).

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April 08, 2009: Meat for Sex in Wild chimpanzees

Wild female chimpanzees copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them over long periods of time, according to a study led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE on April 8, 2009.

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March 16, 2009: Mangabey monkeys follow others into the unknown

Over a period of 10 years an international team of researchers led by Karline Janmaat of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Germany) and Peter M. Waser of Purdue University (USA) have been sharing and analysing ranging data on radio-tracked male and female mangabey monkeys in Kibale National Park, Uganda. They found that unlike predicted in earlier short-term studies, group home ranges drift very little. When monkeys do move into new areas, with the exception of young males, they do so in the company of others. Individuals follow those that are more familiar with the unknown area and may use each other’s reservoir of spatial knowledge. (International Journal of Primatology, March 16, 2009).

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January 09, 2009: A good night’s sleep protects against parasites

Animal species that sleep for longer do not suffer as much from parasite infestation and have a greater concentration of immune cells in their blood according to a study by researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, Durham University in the UK and
the US-American Boston University School of Medicine (BMC Evolutionary Biology, January 9, 2009).

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