Essays on Gorillas

In the 2005 film adaption “King Kong,” directed by Peter Jackson, was inspired by the 1930s classic film by the same name, focusing on the arriving of an American film crew on Skull Island. The Americans are captured by the native tribes on the island and the star of the film is set to be sacrificed in some kind of ceremony. This is when we see King Kong for the first time. King Kong is a fictitious character that is recognizable worldwide. He is a 25 foot tall primate, most closely resembling a gorilla, whose massive size, strength and ...

Movie Review (Virunga, 2014)

Q1.) The documentary, Virunga, is made effective by the fact that it combines advocacy with immediacy. It is directed by Orlando von Einsiedel and focuses on a national park called Virunga, located in eastern Congo. The various issues it seeks to cover make it a unique documentary. It advocates for natural conservation and concern for a rare breed of gorillas, who face the threat of existence from armed poachers and SOCO International, which is an international oil exploration firm in Congo. The park, formerly known as Albert National Park, also faces a threat from mining interests. (Scheib) Virunga gives ...

Part One: Primate Observation Field Notes

The observations of the primate took place at San Francisco Zoo. The following information provides the comments on the field notes made about the two primates – the Colobus Monkey and the Western Lowland Gorilla. The Colobus Monkey – a medium sized monkey of moderate build at San Francisco Zoo is found in the Doelger Primate Discovery Center (DPDC). Together with other species such as the pied tamarins, black howler monkey, siamangs and the squirrel monkeys, the colobus monkey is managed at DPDC under the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plans. These plans are designed to protect those species ...

Introduction

Even though the concept of evolution is a typical narrative, it remains one of the most highly contentious of the topics. Major disagreements persist in the field, particularly when the evolutionary origin and physical modification of primates are the subject matter of discussion. Because of these differences, lots of significant finds in the field have attracted considerable amounts of opposition from experts depending on the species, or the side angle of evolution one recognizes (Ravosa and Dagosto). Disputes often center around locomotion and posture – whether a particular species was fully upright or could walk bipedally, brain size (intelligence), sexuality ...

Did Human Bipedalism Evolve from a Knuckle-walking Ape Ancestor Did Human Bipedalism Evolve from a Knuckle-walking Ape Ancestor

Introduction

The narratives of human evolution are one of the oft-told scientific stories whenever the topic of the origin of man crops up. However, this topic is also one of the thorniest and most highly contentious. There are major disagreements in the manner in which man first came to be, and every interpretation of almost every new find on the matter will be sure to find opposition among scholars on the field (Harcourt-Smith & Aiello, 2004). While there are numerous causes of disputes ...

Based on what I have learned, the primates are intelligent animals. For instance, the chimpanzees and other apes are intelligent because they can learn words, play with each other, play with objects, and they even mourn their friends' death. As compared to humans, psychological abilities vary from one animal to the other. Half of the intelligence that primates have come from their genes. The environmental factors contribute the rest of the intelligence in primates. On the other hand, the human intelligence and development are based on cultural factors such as formal education (Matsuzawa). From the study in human beings ...