Apes

There have been several stories in the media in the last several days about intelligent putty-nosed monkeys, who compose grammatically-correct sentences:

“The pyow-hack sequence means something like ‘let’s go’ whereas the pyows by themselves have multiple functions and the hacks are generally used as alarm calls.”

And apes who plan ahead:

Both orangutans and bonobos were able to figure out which tool would work in an effort to retrieve grapes, and were able to remember to bring that tool along hours later, researchers report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

No stories about more common apes, however. B., who used to work graveyard at the AM/PM convenience store, told me about one customer she particularly loathed. He would walk up to the service window at 3 a.m., fling coins in the change tray, and without further elaboration or even making eye contact, shout "GUM!" at the window.