Free Republic

Say "Banana!" While a hundred monkeys sitting at a hundred typewriters have yet to write any Shakespeare, one Indonesian macaque with a camera turned out to be a pretty good wildlife photographer. Shutterbug David J. Slater was trailing a group of endangered black macaques in a national park on the island of Sulawesi when he decided to let one of the monkeys try out his camera.

Iranian Space Agency plans to launch rocket this summer with monkey on board; plans to send man to space in near future. The head of the Iranian Space Agency, Hamid Fazeli, announced publicly on Thursday that the Islamic Republic plans to launch a rocket into space with a monkey on board this summer, according to an AFP report. The approximate date given is the Persian month of Mordad, which this year falls between July 23 and Augst 23. The rocket to be used is the Iranian Kavoshgar-5. The Kavoshgar-3 rocket, launched in 2010, carried a rat, turtles, and worms. The...

Animal welfare workers were contacted by a Kagiso resident traumatized by the incident, in which a vervet monkey was beaten, pelted with stones, shot at and burned to death. Animal welfare groups in South Africa have condemned the “barbaric” killing of a vervet monkey by a mob of township residents who said it was a talking witch. The monkey was beaten, pelted with stones, shot at and then doused with gas and burned to death in Kagiso near Johannesburg, by residents chanting “Kill that witch!”, reports South Africa’s Star newspaper. The vervet monkey had reportedly wandered into the township after...

Who knew the Dilbert guy, Scott Adams, was such a controversial figure? The cartoonist behind the hapless office drone (but not the one who inspired Office Space. That was Mike Judge’s Milton) has found himself in hot water of late, first for comparing women to “children and the mentally handicapped,” and now, for defending Marilyn Davenport, the Republican official who sent emails depicting President Obama as the offspring of chimpanzees. Ironically, Adams’ defense of Davenport is embedded in a lengthy manifesto about the deleterious PR effects of sticky internet rumors:

Authorities said a woman entered the Amherst County courthouse this morning with a tiny monkey tucked into her bra, dressed in diapers and a white dress with pink flowers. The woman was not identified, but officials confirmed the incident — from Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Maddox to deputies who were working in the courthouse. “You couldn’t make up something like this,” Maddox said. The woman had arrived for a hearing in Juvenile and Domestic Relations court, officials said. They had no idea that she had the monkey — a female named “Kara” — until she went into an office to fill...

In a new book, President Barack Obama is quoted as having stated that race is a "key component" both in the Tea Party's rise and conservative opposition as a whole... But as soon as one might believe that the conversation is run of the mill, the President begins veering into different regions. For example, Walsh writes (emphasis mine): "In May 2010, he told guests at a private White House dinner that race was probably a key component in the rising opposition to his presidency from conservatives, especially right-wing activists in the anti-incumbent "Tea Party" movement that was then surging across...

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY — A monkey was apprehended Tuesday night after it jumped on a man's shoulder, bit the startled man on the ear and then scurried onto a roof, where the animal was eventually coaxed down and into a cage, WSVN-Ch. 7 reported. The incident happened about 7 p.m. at a home near Southwest 134th Avenue and 52nd Street. It's believed the monkey escaped from another home in the neighborhood. The monkey-bite victim was taken to a local hospital. A witness told the WSVN the man had been cooking dinner when the monkey leapt onto his shoulder. When the man...

Classified as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List, listed among the Top 25 Most Endangered primates in the world, and rated number 71 on the EDGE's list of world's most endangered and unique mammals, the yellow-tailed woolly monkey needed some good news—and this week it got it. The conservation organization, Neotropical Primate Conservation (NPC), has announced the discovery of an unknown population of the yellow-tailed woolly monkey (Oreonax flavicauda), buttressing hopes that the species will survive in the long-term. Native to the cloud forests of north-eastern Peru, the yellow-tailed woolly monkey was thought extinct until it was rediscovered in...

Deep in the jungles of Myanmar, scientists have discovered a new species of monkey in an unfortunate predicament: Its nostrils are turned upward, so that whenever it rains, they fill up with water and cause the monkey to sneeze. The black, furry creature lives around the Maw River in the Southeast Asian country's northeast corner. It has white tufts of fur on its ears and a white beard on its chin. Scientists have named the new species Rhinopithecus strykeri, but locals know it as "monkey with an upturned face" in their language. Foreign primatologists joined local conservationists searching for the...

Those stingy Republicans have issued another lame attack on what they call "wasteful spending" in President Barack Obama's $863 billion job stimulus program. These include vital federal projects, like that $89,298 sidewalk in Boynton, Okla. Sure, it doesn't run past a home or business, and yes, it does end in a ditch. But it's extremely smooth. And that nearly $800,000 program so a Georgia Tech University assistant music professor can hang out with world-renowned musicians and "jam" with them? Can't you dig it? "I think all of them are waste," growled the crusty McCain on ABC News. "I think none...

Despite "poor imitation," cat shows surprising "psychological cunning." For a plucky little forest cat, the key to survival might just be "monkey see, monkey do." The margay (picture), or tree ocelot, mimics monkey calls to draw in prey, the nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced Thursday. Scientists in the Amazon rain forest's Reserva Florestal Adolpho Ducke, near Manaus, Brazil, heard a margay imitating the call of a baby pied tamarin monkey in 2005. It was the first—and so far, only—scientifically documented case of a cat imitating a prey species in the Americas, team member Fabio Rohe, a researcher for the...

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WASHINGTON – Afghanistan's Taliban terrorists are training monkeys to shoot American soldiers with automatic weapons, according to British and Chinese media agencies. In the Taliban stronghold of Waziristan, journalists took pictures of some "monkey soldiers" holding AK-47s and Bren light machine guns. The official People's Daily in China explained the emergence of "monkey soldiers" as just another facet of "asymmetrical warfare." "The United States launched the war in Afghanistan using the world's most advanced weapons, such as highly-intelligent robots to detect bombs on roadsides and unmanned aerial vehicles to attack major Taliban targets," said the report. "In response, the Taliban...

A Chinese man who saved a one-armed, one-legged monkey says the primate has paid him back - by killing all of his chickens. Li Chun, from Menghai village, Yunnan province, says the monkey has become a member of his family since he nursed it back to health. It has become to devoted to the family and performs many chores around the home - but it also copies everything Li does. When it saw him crack some eggs to make a meal it went into the hen coop and smashed all of the eggs it could find. And when Li slaughtered...

A British woman who went to a Thai nature resort to conquer her fear of monkeys has been savaged by a pack of macaques. Dee Darwell, 56, lost consciousness after the monkeys surrounded her and sank their teeth into her arms and body. Many of the primates remained hanging from her limbs as she lay collapsed with blood spurting from a "deep, deep hole" in her arm. She was eventually rescued by Thai boatmen and was taken to Bangkok Phuket Hospital. The horrific attack happened on Monkey Island near to the popular holiday island of Phuket in southern Thailand. "I...

(CNN) – A national leader of the conservative Tea Party movement has been strongly criticized by Islamic civil rights leaders for referring to the proposed site of a New York City mosque as a place for Muslims to worship "the terrorists' monkey-god." Tea Party Express organizer Mark Williams blogged on his Web site last week that the mosque - to be constructed near the former site of the World Trade Center - would be a "monument ... for the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god and a 'cultural center' to propagandize for the extermination of all things not approved by their...

(Reuters) - Indonesian police have arrested a couple who made meatballs from the flesh of protected monkeys, an animal conservation group said on Wednesday. The pair poached dozens of rare Javan langurs, also known as silver-leaf monkeys, from Baluran National Park in the east of Java island, according to a statement released by Indonesia-based animal protection group ProFauna.

A Thai police force has begun taking a monkey, dressed in police uniform, on patrol each day to help improve relations with Muslim separatists. The five-year-old pig-tailed macaque was adopted after policemen in Yaha province in southern Thailand found him injured with a broken arm. Trainers taught Santisuk, which means peace in Thai, to pick up coconuts and he now helps residents collect the fruit.

Lo Wung, 42, taught the monkeys so they could entertain crowds outside a shopping centre in Nshi, in eastern China's Hubei province. But the money-spinning primates turned the tables on their trainer when he slipped during a show, with one quick-thinking monkey flooring him with a kick to the head.

NEW YORK — A New York City woman who was caught smuggling monkey meat through Customs has been sentenced to probation. Mamie Manneh was arrested in 2006 after agents seized a shipment of dozens of primate parts hidden in a batch of smoked fish.