The Similarities of Species
Science is finding new similarities between humans and other species

Click to enlarge the photo. It was taken in Hindu temple where an
abused neglected monkey was seen adopting a stray puppy dog

book review: Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild

link to animation "I Eat People"
 

KNOWLEDGE, INTELLIGENCE

Ape Genius reveals depth of animal intelligence - May 2008
Pigeon Intelligence - March 2008
Japan parrot beats humans in solving chain puzzle - March 2008
Schoolboy explodes goldfish memory myth - Feb 08
Genius Chimp Outsmarts Tube - Feb 08
Animal Cognition
Beat the Chimp - Jan 08
Picture-sorting dogs show human-like thought - Dec 07
Variations in a cockroach's learning ability - September 2007
Talking With The Animals. Science May Be Leading the Way - August 2007
Crayfish Are Not Stupid - July 2007
Chickens are more evolved than previously believed - July 2007
Orang-utans solve nutty problem - July 2007
The Scheming Minds of Crows - June 2007
Monkeys can calculate statistics - June 2007
Rats Capable Of Reflecting On Mental Processes - May 2007
Crows are no bird-brains, Japanese study finds - May 2007
Pet fish knows his name - April 2007
Chickens Are Intelligent, Gentle Vivacious Individuals - April 2007
Rats Think Like Humans - March 2007
Pigeon Decisions - December 2006
Lab Chimp Speaks Own Language - January 2003
Chicken Smarts - They are smarter than we thought.
Manatee Brains 2
What Your Pet Is Thinking - Research into animal intelligence, October 2006.
Dolphins: brighter than we thought
Who's That Pretty Pachyderm? Mirror's test self awareness. October 2006.
Animal Intelligence -- June 2006. Animal intelligence resists definition.
Self Awareness -- May 2006. Self Awareness: Who's That Stunner?
Orangutan Lessons -- April 2006. The discovery of a group of privileged primates teaching each other sophisticated behaviour hints at the way human intellect has evolved.
Smart hummingbirds -- March 2006. Hummingbirds show surprising brainpower.
Cow Leadership -- Jan. 2006. Cows Choose Leaders Based on Intelligence, Confidence, and Experience.
Prairie dog language  Dec 2004. Language of Prairie Dogs Includes Words for Humans.
Animal Language -- Excerpt from Animals in Translation. Do Animals Talk to Each Other the Way People Do?
Animals' Selves -- Do Animals Have Selves?
Bird chirps -- June 2005. Bird's Warning Chirps Reveal Surprising Smarts.
Sheep Intell -- Aug, 2005. Ewe would be amazed: sheep solve problems, by Vera Devai.
Smart dogs -- Why your dog is smarter than a wolf.
Alex says "None" -- No Birdbrain, Parrot Grasps Concept of Zero.
Warbling Whales -- March 2006. Warbling Whales Speak a Language All Their Own.
IC Rat Brain -- 21 Mar 2005. OF MICE AND MAN, AND A BIG DILEMMA, By Janes Langton.
Rat brains -- Study: Rats have head for language. Three types of mammals shown to have such language skills.
Pining Bull -- Bull finds way to dead owner's grave.
Animal Intelligence -- Sheep might be dumb ... but they're not stupid. Studies show that farmyard animals have a range of emotions and a sharp intelligence, by Mark Townsend.
Speciesism Sucks -- At least we'll think so when "Intelligent Beings from Alpha Centauri have arrived".
Chickens think -- July 2005. Study: Chickens can anticipate the future and demonstrate self-control, a new study finds, something previously only attributed to primates.
Inside Animals Heads -- Getting inside animals' heads.

COMPASSION, MORALITY

Dolphin rescues stranded whales: conservation official - March 2008
Dog in Street, Showing Emotions - January 2008
Jumbos mourn black rhino killed by poachers - November 2007
A World of Eloquence in an Upturned Palm - August 2007
Altruistic Rats: Two Studies Show Reciprocal Cooperation - July 2007
Altruistic Chimps act for the benefit of others - June 2007
Otters holding hands - video
Leopard Saves a Baby Baboon - March 2007
Gee Whizz a Hero - dog rescues dog
The Animal Roots of Human Morality - October 2006
Elephant Compassion -- August 2006. Elephants show compassion in the face of death.
Dog Saves Newborn -- Jan. 2006. Husky saves newborn from drowning.
Monkey - puppy -- Jan. 2006. No monkey business this.
Altruistic Ants -- Scientists at the University of Sheffield in the UK have demonstrated altruism in ants.
Tortoise -- A tortoise adopts a hippo.

MIRACLES

Refrigerator Duck - remarkable will-to-live
 

BEHAVIOR, CONDUCT

Birds Can Tell If You Are Watching Them - May 2008
Listening to Elephants. Breaking the Human / Nonhuman Divide - May 2008
Thailand tree apes use song as warning - Jan 08
The octopus who loves his Mr Potato Head - Jan 08
Sharing a Joke: Empathy Among Apes - Dec 07
Animals Do the Cleverest Things - Dec 07
Fish Personalities - 2 - November 2007
Go Ahead, Rationalize. Monkeys Do It, Too - November 2007
Elephants can sniff out human friends from foe - November 2007
Monkey Seen Weeping At Girl's Death In India - October 2007
Iran Alarmed by Mass Dolphin Suicide - October 2007
Tusker elopes with circus elephant - August 2007
How Chimps Avoid Temptation - August 2007
Flamingo Pride - June 2007
Evolution of Animal Personalities - June 2007
Doggie See, Doggie Do - April 2007
Emily, Tyke, and animal escapes
A Kiss to Forget a Fight
Fishy Cooperation - December 2006. Describes the discovery of coordinated hunting between groupers (Plectropomus pessuliferus) and giant moray eels (Gymnothorax javanicus) in the Red Sea.
Triumph and Despair Alter Fishes' Future Behavior
Did Humans Invent Right and Wrong? Or is morality a part of our inheritance from our primate ancestors?
Birds and Bees May Be Gay: Museum Exhibition - October 2006
Farm animals bonds -- Family bonds within farm animals.
Farm Social Groupings -- Social Groupings within farm animals.
Parrot Behavior -- March 2006. Parrot's behavior mirrors human mental disorders.
Elephant Revenge -- March 2006. Study says elephants might seek revenge.
Chimps Cooperate -- March 2006. Chimps Display a Hallmark of Human Behavior: Cooperation.  Ant School -- Jan. 2006. Ants Are First Non-Humans to Teach, Study Says.
Monkey luv -- Nov. 2005. Primates Are People, Too.
Monkeys Pay -- Jan. 2005. Monkeys Pay to See Female Monkey Bottoms.
Birds Naming -- Oct. 2005. Birds refer to other birds with specific bird names.
Mouse Songs -- Nov. 2005. Male mice sing songs of love.
Membership -- Can Animals Attain Membership Within a Human Social/Moral Group? by Eli Kanon. Honor Among Beasts -- Altruism, empathy & a sense of fair play are not only human traits. By Michael D. Lemonick.
Dolphin Culture--'Sponging' Dolphins May Be Sharing Culture, By Rob Stein.
Primatologist -- A day in the life and in the lab of Frans de Waal.
Gorilla Wake -- Gorillas hold 'wake' for group's leader. Gorillas last respects similar to human behavior.
Monkey Empathy -- July 2005. Monkeys Reflect a Degree of Empathy.
Chimp Culture -- Aug. 2005. Chimpanzee culture 'confirmed' by Helen Briggs.
Whale Culture -- Whales show an ability to learn and teach.
Animal Laughter -- It seems that animals like to laugh, too.
Wild Justice.pdf-- Wild Justice and Fair Play, Cooperation, Forgiveness, and Morality in Animals, by Marc Bekoff.
A Dog's Life -- from the Renaissance on, art and literature seem to have been way ahead of science in granting animals - or at any rate, mammals - some acceptance of sentience.
 

SKILL, ABILITIES

Psyche! Fire Ants Play Dead - April 2008
Elephant paints self-portrait / Dog skateboards - Mar 08
Some Birds Can Communicate About Behavior of Predators - Jan 08
Scientists Decode Dogspeak with Computer Software - Jan 08
Dogs Have Ability to Think About What Humans Think About - November 2007
Migrating Birds Can See the Earth's Magnetic Field - September 2007
Oscar the Cat Predicts Patients' Deaths - July 2007
When I See an Elephant ... Paint? - June 2007
Orangutans Play Video Games - April 2007
Monkeys Learn Stone Skills from Each Other - March 2007
We're Not Unique, Just at one end of the spectrum
Birds plan ahead, study shows
The Chimpanzee Stone Age
Raven Nation: Avian Superstar both Athlete & Egghead Gibbon Communication - with songs
Chimps develop green cross code for highways - Sept 2006
Manatees: brains over beauty - Sept 2006.
Shared Ancestor to Humans - August 2006. Possible linchpin to evolution of language.
N'kisi -- Feb. 2006. Parrot's Oratory Stuns Scientists.
Singing mates -- Feb 2006. Some animals are better musicians than first thought.
Fish Tricks -- Jan. 2006. Goldfish Can Learn Tricks.
Monkey dont see -- Dec. 2005. Children Learn by Monkey See, Monkey Do. Chimps Don't.
Squid Moms -- Dec. 2005. Scientists' Discovery in the Deep Casts Squid Mothers in a Brighter Light.
Gorillas Use Tools -- Sept 2005. Wild gorillas seen using tools for first time.
Gorillas Tools -- Oct 2005.
Crows Make Tools -- More studies show that the line that separates man and animal is fuzzy.
 

EMOTIONS, FEELINGS

True feeling from the heart of the beast - March 2008
Rats Laugh When You Tickle Them - September 2007
Alex's legacy is to listen to animals - September 2007
A good home environment boosts birds' morale - April 2007
Commentary: Do Elephants Cry? - April 2007
Dolphin 'dying of broken heart' after keeper is stabbed to death - April 2007
Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior - March 2007
Is It Unscientific to Say that an Animal is Happy?
Brainy Whales Get Emotional - December 2006
Animal Seem to Have an Inherent Sense of Justice - November 2006
They Think, They Feel Pain
Pet Pleasure Study -- July 2006.
Mice Show Empathy -- June 2006. Mice show empathy for fellow rodents.
Mouse Empathy -- July 2006.
When Animals Grieve -- March 2006. Pets go through an emotional process much like ours when facing loss.
Lobster's pain -- March 2006. New Scientific Study Shows That Lobster's Feel Pain.
Goldfish Memory -- Jan 2006. Goldfish have memory of pain, and employ pain avoidance techniques.
Whale Rescue Changes Rescuer - December 2005
Emotions -- Aug. 2005. 1st Veterinary textbook on mental health for animals is published. 
All Beings Feel -- August 2005. All beings that feel pain deserve human rights, by Richard Ryder.
Animals Feelings -- August 2005.
 

RIGHTS

Rights for Gorillas! Oh, and Humans - April 2007
Should apes have human rights? - March 2007
Yes, Elephants commit suicide Peter Singer -- Philosophy Under Fire: The Peter Singer Controversy By Dr. Steven Best.
Intelligence Of Dolphins Cited in Fight Against Hunt - Nov. 2006.
Primate Essays -- March 2006. A link to a small collection of entertaining primate essays.
Proud Speciesist -- Sept 2005. Reply to a Self-Proclaimed Speciesist, by Joan Dunayer. by J.Dunayer -- Review of novel: Speciesism by Joan Dunayer.
Small Claim -- A (Small) CLAIM FOR SPECIESISM by Chris Borthwick.
Spec vs Rights -- The Origin of Speciesism by Hugh LaFollette and Niall Shanks. Speciesism vs. Inalienable Rights.
Equality -- Animal Equality by Joan Dunayer.
From Speciesism to Equality -- by Joan Dunayer.
Man & Other Animals -- Man and Other Animals, by Jeremy Rifkin, August 2003.
The Line -- Novel: Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights by Steven M. Wise.    Bekoff Nystrom.pdf -- The Other Side of Silence: Rachel Carson's Views on Animals by Marc Bekoff & Jan Nystrom.
 

MEMORY

Time in the Animal Mind - April 2007
 

HISTORY

Animal History -- History from a wolf's perspective? or a cow's? A new breed of thinkers looks beyond Homo sapiens.

GENES

Human-chimp Gene Study Upsets Long-held View - April 2007
Chimps 'more evolved' than humans - April 2007
Unraveling Where Chimp and Human Brains Diverge
Human Ancestors -- May 2006. Human Ancestors May Have Interbred With Chimpanzees.
Human-Chimp Split -- May 2006. Two Splits Between Human and Chimp Lines Suggested.  Chimp DNA -- Sept. 2005. Scientists Complete Genetic Map of the Chimpanzee, Differences From Human DNA Pinpointed, by Rick Weiss.
Chimps in our tree May 2003. Chimps Belong on Human Branch of Family Tree, Study Says.  Personality -- Looking for Personality in Animals, of All People, by Carl Zimmer.
 

GENERAL

Baby birds babble like humans before singing: study - May 2008
Mirror Mirror - Evidence against vivisection - October 2006
Whales Outsmart -- March 2006. How whales outsmart fishing fleets.
Animals = Thyself -- Sept 2005. Meanwhile: Know the animals, know yourself, by Bernd Heinrich.
Chimps Like Us -- 2005 Interview with Jane Goodall.
Lowest Life -- The Lowest Form of Life by Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
Partly wolf -- New evidence suggests that to be truly human is to be partly wolf.
Can You Tell? -- A list of rodent and human characteristics. Can you tell the difference?
Suspicious Minds -- by Frans de Waal. DO YOU think of animals and humans as "them" and "us"?
Essay -- How Much Like Us Need They Be?

Anthropocentrism -- definitions.

Speciesism Forgotten -- Photos of animals getting along with other species and the related stories if available.

An elephant crackup?  http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/ 08/magazine/08elephant.html?ex=1160971200&en=877ba39c74c19871&ei=5070&emc=eta1