Virtual Ethnography 101: Into the Zoo

This summer I asked my college students in Anthropology 1, aside from learning anthropological concepts and theories inside the classroom - to explore places, experience cultural happenings, and then apply their learning through writing ethnographic accounts using the method of participation-observation.

I am posting in my blog with the writer's consent selected ethnography penned creatively by my students to contribute to the emerging sub-discipline of anthropology called 'Virtual Ethnography'.

Basically, virtually ethnography is also referred to as Webnography. We cannot deny the fact that with increasing use of technology and the Internet, there is now a demand for online spaces on various ethnographic accounts.


Ethnography By Seth Yao

Last Saturday, I went to Manila Zoo along with my three classmates. There, we were expecting to be able to observe primates. There, we did the chance to see the behavior of all sorts of monkeys; the problem was, though, that we were not able to watch any apes. There was supposed to be a chimpanzee in the zoo and I was looking forward to seeing it but, unfortunately, its cage was empty when we got there. To complete this ethnography, then, I decided to supplement my notes with academic information from myself and other sources.

While we were watching the different monkeys in the zoo, I noticed how they were so similar to humans, especially after seeing the other exhibits in the zoo that features all sorts of animals. I couldn’t help but think about how differently these simians would have lived if they had developed bipedalism. After all, we did not become humans because we suddenly gained intellect. No, it all started with walking on two legs; our intellect was just the same as those of apes when Lucy was trying to walk on two feet. The intelligence came after.

The monkey in the picture wearing diapers is living proof that just about all of the basic internal processes of all primates are the same as those of humans; the diaper was put on the monkey because just like human babies, its waste material is expelled from the same organs. The same foes for its hands, which it uses for grasping and eating; its ears, which pick up sounds along with the source of the sound; its eyes, which have the same properties as ours; and, of course, its sexual organs, which function the same way as ours do.

In addition to this, more similar to us than these monkeys are the apes. Like us, they have no tails, they normally live on the ground, and their reproductive cycles roughly last the same amount of time as ours do. Some of our similarities include our genes, social attitudes, capability to communicate with language, and even innovation with herbal medicine.

(Source of Photo: Cover The WFDC locus in the primate genome @ genome.cshlp.org) First, comparison between the chimpanzee and the human genome shows that 98.77% of DNA pairs of humans and chimpanzees are the same. However, there are an additional 1.23% differences between the two species in duplicated non-protein coding segments of DNA. Where we differ appears to be largely in the genes that control speech, smelling, hearing digesting proteins, and susceptibility to certain diseases. These minor differences are to be expected given that we have been on essentially separate evolutionary tracks for 6-7 million years, During that time, we have been subject to somewhat different natural selection pressures. These differences led to bipedalism for our ancestors along with much larger brain and ultimately, speech.

Second, apes and humans have similar social characteristics. Gorillas, humans and chimpanzees kill members of their own species. The need for social and physical contact is also characteristic of most primates. Species that live in groups need to reconcile aggression. Social groups require some form of conflict resolution. Sexual behavior is one such mechanism to overwhelm aggression. Sexual activity among Bonobos, also know as pygmy chimpanzee, serves the function of reproduction as well as pleasure and conflict resolution; they don’t even have age and gender boundaries, sexual activity is common between two males or two females as much as it is between opposite sexes and this is common between individuals of any age. Moreover, like humans, they perform oral sex, genital massage, and intense tongue-kissing. (Source of Photo: frontal lobes (colored) in human and several non-human primate species @ nature.com)

Of course, human social life isn’t as dominated by sexual activity as these animals, though. For conflict resolution, humans use speech and language, although couples tend to have intimacy right after settling an argument in order to restore the sense of close companionship with each other.

(Source of Photo: Dr. Roger Fouts tries to teach American Sign Language to a chimp @ animals.howstuffworks.com) Third, in an experiment, five chimpanzees were taught the American Sign Language. Washoe, one of the chimpanzees, learned 132 signs from age one to age six and was even able to form novel combinations of these signs. In another experiment, two chimps were taught to communicate with lexigrams, symbols that represent words, on a symbol keyboard system (accompanied by special lighting on the keyboard, image projection and accompanying sounds to correspond to the symbols). Their success rate was 97% when the keyboard with lexigrams was available, but dropped to 10% with the keyboard turned off. This goes to show that just like humans, these apes have the capacity to learn language even if they aren’t physically capable of speech.

Finally, in a study conducted across equatorial Africa, sixteen plant species of possible medical use have been observed and identified to have been ingested by chimpanzees across equatorial Africa. This behavior has also been observed in the Bamboo and the eastern lowland gorilla. Further analysis showed that chimpanzees picked out leaves with short hairs in order to expel parasitic worms from their digestive tract. This worked by causing the worms to stick to the hairy surface of the leaf as they were defecated along with the leaf. These animals have also been found to ingest bitter leaves in order to rid themselves of parasite infections. They learn to do these things by learning from other members of the community that have experimented with these plant parts successfully.

In conclusion, I can say that primates, especially apes, have just about all of the potential of humans albeit in lesser degrees. We are not so different from each other genetically and physically. What really set us apart are things that cannot be seen in fossil findings and physical comparison; we are different in terms of our intellect and behavior. The species of homo sapiens don’t evolve as quickly as other animals because we are too geographically diverse and we use technology to adapt to our environment. This way, instead of having a select few mutant offspring surviving environmental pressure, most of the species survives and retains most of its original traits. Unlike us, though, the primates will have to adapt on their own through mutation and evolution and thus further differentiate from us.

Sources:

http://www.shvoong.com/exact-science/1759756-humans-apes-similarities-differences/
http://www.cs.unc.edu/-plaisted/ce/apes.html
http://anthro.palomar.edu/primate/prim_8.htm
http://soong.club.cc.cmu.edu/-julie/bonobos.html
http://www.oit.itd.umich.edu/projects/ADW/
http://www.jqjacobs.net/anthro/paleo/primates.html
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/chb/lectures/anthl_11.html