Great Apes and Monkeys, Deer and Cows

 

by Pa Rock

Student of Nature

(Note:  As some of you may have noticed, I am on a hiatus from writing about politics.   I used to devote a lot of space in this blog to discussing the politics of our nation, certain states, and even my local community, because it was always easy to find outrages to write about, but of late the outrages have been piling up so quickly, and so high, that I have decided to leave digging though the shit to others, and I will endeavor to find more interesting things to write about.   Expect more variety and less tension.)

I had an email yesterday afternoon from my good friend, Ranger Bob, a former ranger with the national park system and a well-trained naturalist.  In responding to yesterday's blog posting where I talked about the plight of elderly chimpanzees currently being housed in a chimp research facility at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, I referred to the chimps on multiple occasions as monkeys.   Ranger Bob informed me of the error of my ways and said that chimpanzees are actually a type of "great ape" and monkeys are not.

I did a little digging on my own after receiving Bob's message and collected a few more specifics.  According to a pamphlet published for the Center for Great Apes called "About Apes" which is available on the internet:

"Although there are a number of differences between apes and monkeys (apes have a longer life span, larger body size, larger brain-to-body ratio, and higher intelligence);  the main difference is that monkeys have tails and apes do not have tails.  The difference between great apes and lesser apes is general size.)

Apes and monkeys are distinct and different, but they are members of the same order of mammals, "primates," and so are humans.  Merriam-Webster defines "primate" as:

"Any of an order (Primates) of mammals that are characterized especially by advanced development of binocular vision resulting in stereoscopic depth perception, specialization of the hands and feet for grasping, and enlargement of the cerebral hemispheres that include humans, apes, monkeys, and related forms such as lemurs and tarsiers."

Bob also told me in a humorous fashion that referring to chimpanzees as monkeys was like calling a deer a cow - which put me in mind of an old Ozark folktale about some guys from St. Louis who decided to head to the Ozarks and hunt deer.  After two or three nights of getting drunk at their deer camp, and two or three days of hungover hunting, they had no dead deer to show for their efforts and decided to pack it in and head back to the city.  However, on the way home they happened to pass a meadow where they saw a few deer grazing peacefully.    They quickly pulled to the side of the road, took aim on the poor creature who was standing closest to the road, and opened fire with several rounds hitting the target which fell dead.  They gutted their prize, tied the carcass to the top of their minivan, and headed home to certain praise and glory.  They were on the outskirts of St. Louis when a state highway patrolman pulled them over and asked why a dead cow was strapped to the top of their vehicle!

That is a folk tale.  It undoubtedly has its genesis in something that actually happened in a rural location many years ago, and it likely is enhanced with every retelling.  If the guys who actually shot that cow are still around, they should send their resumes to the incoming presidential administration because one of them would certainly be a shoo-in for Secretary of the Interior - or perhaps Secretary of Agriculture!  Nothing speaks louder in a job search than experience.

Finding things to blog about is simple if you possess an untethered mind!