Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Apes recognize friends they haven’t seen for decades, new research
finds
Do you remember a friend whom you haven’t seen for years or decades?
Since our looks and shapes change over the years, it might not be so easy to
recognize even a close friend with whom we spent a lot of time together,
especially by a photo. However, recent research conducted on chimps and bonobos
in zoos in Scotland, Belgium, and Japan found that they showed positive responses
when they were shown photos of their mates who used to have lived together long
ago but not the ones unassociated. Surprisingly, apes can recognize individuals
only by a photo like humans. Elephants also have such social memories even
after many years of separation but cannot recognize others by a photo. Also, they seem to possess very long-term
memory like humans or elephants. So, if they recognize and remember their
friends, they might miss them, which could prove their cognitive mechanism that
has been thought to be unique to humans. But will their memory decline as they
age like humans?
Enjoy reading the article and learning about how smart our close cousins
are.
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