Great Apes Could Recognize a Face They Once Saw for Years [Study]

Great apes are great at remembering faces. Researchers say they tend to look at a face they have already seen longer.

Great Apes Possess Great Facial Recognition Skills

Some animals have exceptional memories. Elephants are known to have sharp memories, and great apes possess the same talent.

According to a new study, apes can recall another chimpanzee or bonobo for over 25 years. The monkeys' gaze patterns were captured by infrared eye-tracking cameras when they were presented with side-by-side pictures of chimpanzees or other bonobos.

The participant chose an image of a stranger and a picture of a bonobo or chimp they had lived with for at least a year. Researchers discovered that the monkeys' eyes stayed noticeably longer on pictures of people they had previously lived with, indicating some level of recognition. They also took longer to observe the monkeys and had more favorable interactions.

In one instance, it had been more than 26 years since a bonobo named Louise had seen her sister or nephew. Her gaze focused on the two photographs that the researchers had shown her.

"These animals have a rich recognition of each other. We don't know exactly what that representation looks like, but we know that it lasts for years," said Dr. Laura Lewis from the University of California, Berkeley. "This study is showing us not how different we are from other apes, but how similar we are to them and how similar they are to us."

The results further support the hypothesis that long-term memory in bonobos, chimpanzees, and humans likely originated from a single ancestor between 6 and 9 million years ago.

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Elephants From Gorongosa Still Remember Civil War Decades Later

Elephants in Mozambique's wildlife refuge Gorongosa National Park also have sharp memories and still remember the country's civil war. The nation's 15-year civil war, which raged from 1977 to 1992, left behind memories so deep-rooted that the genes of the remaining elephants who carry these recollections.

At Gorongosa, an increasing number of elephants are born without their tusks, the second most distinctive feature of an elephant. The warring warriors traded ivory to pay for weapons to wage their long-lasting battles. Natural selection is skillfully stepping in to make the species less appealing to poachers - some elephants were born tuskless.

The gentle giants have also turned into a bit of a churlish gang. Compared to the populations of elephants in Kenya, the trunk-swinging pachyderms of Gorongosa are more prone to charge at people in Jeeps and Land Rovers because they consider them to be death on wheels.

In the eyes of the elephants, the peace achieved in the 30 years since the war's conclusion is brittle and prone to change. Having studied elephants for over 50 years, Joyce Poole, the scientific director of Elephant Voices, claims that the creatures also possess a hint of attitude.

In Gorongosa, the younger elephants observe and learn from the adult ones. Many of them are old enough to remember military vehicles, and they pass that knowledge on to the younger generation, leaving them with "transgenerational trauma."