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Wild African ape reactions to novel camera traps

African wild apes notice and often react to novel items in their environment

An international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, analyzed video from remote camera-trap devices placed in ape-populated forests throughout Africa to see how wild apes would react to these unfamiliar objects. Responses varied by species, and even among individuals within the same species, but one thing was consistent throughout: the apes definitely noticed the cameras.

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© K. Langergraber, M. Robbins, S. Lucchesi