Re: Gorrillas use tools, too


Algis Kuliukas wrote:
[snip]
> The claim is not that apes are most often seen to be bipedal when
> they're in water, but that when they are in particular shallow depths
> of water they're almost certain to be bipedal. See the difference?
> It's a subtle point but, I think, it's very important. On land apes are
> rarely bipedal. Studies have shown this to be around 2-3% of the time.
> In tress, the same. But in water, the only study that has been done
> (mine, albeit a small one on captive bonobos) showed it to be around
> 90%.

Actually, it doesn't appear to me that you know what your claim is.
You go on and on and on about the predictability of "waist deep" water
but when pressed on the relevence, digress into talk about shallower
water. You appear to take your own 37 or 38 seconds of data and
generalize that it is some universal though you have been informed that
the predictability of wading in shallow water isn't nearly as powerful
as you've presented it with reports from wild populations of
quadrupedal wading. Did you forget this or was it simply inconvenient
to include it into your reasoning?

> This evidence from gorillas has made all the headlines because it shows
> that they are capable of figuring out that a stick can be used to guage
> depths. Just as significant a point though, I think, is that it shows
> how the gorilla switched from quadrupedal to bipedal locomotion in
> water.

And this is something that it could do without any morphological
change, without any selection for it because the ape was already a
facultative biped. You seem to be dead-set against actually addressing
this and seem to be content with a nebulous postulation that there'd be
some selection and it would favor what we see, though you provide
nothing more compelling than the opinion of someone who is obviously
poorly versed in both functional anatomy and evolutionary theory.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Bipedalism in different substrates
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  • Re: Bipedalism in different substrates
    ... >> foraging in a variety of areas and employing different foraging ... >> bipedally both on land and in water, but this would shoot down your ... >the facts that Miocene apes of Europe & SE Asia must have lived around ... Australian aborigines also survived in other habitats. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Tobias 1995
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    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Bipedalism in different substrates
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    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Bipedalism in different substrates
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