Hunter-gatherers and other primates as prey, predators, and competitors of snakes.

 


Female Reticulated Python killed by Agta Negrito men, June 9, 1970. Photo: J. Headland.

Thomas N. Headland and Harry W. Greene (2011) Hunter–gatherers and other primates as prey, predators, and competitors of snakes. PNAS 108 (52) E1470-E1474.

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1115116108.

Hunter-gatherers and other primates as prey, predators, and competitors of snakes.

Relationships between primates and snakes are of widespread interest from anthropological, psychological, and evolutionary perspectives, but surprisingly, little is known about the dangers that serpents have posed to people with prehistoric lifestyles and nonhuman primates.

Here, we report ethnographic observations of 120 Philippine Agta Negritos when they were still preliterate hunter-gatherers, among whom 26% of adult males had survived predation attempts by reticulated pythons. Six fatal attacks occurred between 1934 and 1973. Agta ate pythons as well as deer, wild pigs, and monkeys, which are also eaten by pythons, and therefore, the two species were reciprocally prey, predators, and potential competitors.

Natural history data document snake predation on tree shrews and 26 species of nonhuman primates as well as many species of primates approaching, mobbing, killing, and sometimes eating snakes. These findings, interpreted within the context of snake and primate phylogenies, corroborate the hypothesis that complex ecological interactions have long characterized our shared evolutionary history.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix

Image
 James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) with his mother, Lucille, in 1943. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music". Born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the US Army, but was discharged the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville then Nashville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the chitlin' circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after bas...
Read more

A revolutionary surgery took place on this day 64 years ago, changing the world of medicine as we know it.

Image
  A revolutionary surgery took place on this day 64 years ago, changing the world of medicine as we know it.  For the first time ever, a machine was inserted into the human body in lieu of a body part that was no longer able to function correctly.  In 1958, two doctors, cardiac surgeon Ake Senning and medical device engineer Rune Elmqvist, implanted the first ever internal cardiac pacemaker into the body of Swedish engineer Arne Larsson. Larsson’s surgery was done to treat his Stokes-Adams syndrome, a condition that slows the heartbeat and decreases blood flow to the brain, resulting in potentially fatal fainting spells.  This revolutionary internal pacemaker was the size of a hockey puck and used two transistors that would deliver tiny shocks to the heart. Unfortunately, the first edition of this pacemaker would not last past 8 hours. Thankfully, Senning managed to successfully implant a second pacemaker that Elmqvist had ready on hand.  This second pacemaker w...
Read more

A Woman Let Strangers Do Whatever They Wanted To Her Body For 6 Hours — And The Results Were Awful

Image
  A Woman Let Strangers Do Whatever They Wanted To Her Body For 6 Hours — And The Results Were Awful Yugoslavian performance artist Marina Abramović is the woman many credit as "the grandmother of performance art." She was featured on Sex and the City and collaborated with James Franco. Somehow, her celebrated 1988 art piece, "The Lovers: the Great Wall Walk" — in which she and her longtime lover and collaborator Ulay started at opposite ends of the Great Wall of China, to meet in the middle as a way of signaling the break up of their 12-year relationship — seems like something that happened over a million years ago now. In light of the events going on in the world today, her work may perhaps be more intensely important now than it ever has been before, particularly if you are either a woman or someone with a sincere interested in understanding the depth of what women experience. The premise was deceptively simple. Abramović announced that she would stan...
Read more

Why are people in Europe afraid to touch on the topic of the Great Patriotic War?

Image
 Why are people in Europe afraid to touch on the topic of the Great Patriotic War? Because they ALL fought against Red Army And everyone should know this. In 1941, not only Germany attacked the USSR. The rest of Europe was also attacked, with the exception of the Serbs and Greeks. The USSR was attacked by Spanish divisions and French legions, Italian armies, Romania, Hungary, Finland, parts of Czechoslovakia, Croatia, etc. So, the Brest Fortress was stormed Austrians, and Sevastopol - Romanians and Italians. Even Albania sent the SS Skanderbey division to fight in the USSR. Romanians, Hungarians, Croats, and Slovaks were eager to grab a piece of the USSR. In Guderian's tanks, almost every second driver was Czech. And they all committed atrocities worse than the Germans. The Hungarian punitive forces were not captured by Soviet soldiers. Just like in the Civil War, when they were already showed themselves to be monsters. She committed atrocities near Leningrad and Rzhev Dutch SS div...
Read more

The Spanish Tickler

Image
The Span ish Tickle r This terrible device was used in most of Europe throughout the Middle Ages. It was a very simple instrument that was used to tear a victim's skin apart.  The victim would be naked and tied leaving him or her completely helpless. Then the torturers began the, sometimes public, act of mutilation. They often began with the limbs and slowly moved on to the chest, back, neck and finally the face. In short, the Spanish Tickler or Cat's Paw, is nothing but an extension to the torturer's hand, it had spikes which were sharp enough to tear through anything in their path. This instrument was very common in Spain, mostly during the Spanish Inquisition, although its use in France and England is well recorded, they often adopted different torture methods. The Spanish Tickler varied in shape and size. Some were long and had a pole attached to the rear so the torturer could tear the skin from a distance while others were nothing but the claw itself. Depending o...
Read more

Brutality of Syria war casts doubt on peace talks

Image
  Brutality of Syria war casts doubt on peace talks War crimes experts say they have huge cache of photos documenting mass killing by Assad; Syrian FM arrives in Switzerland, says Assad's future a 'red line' In this June 12, 2011 photo during a government-organized tour for media, Syrian army soldiers show reporters dead bodies after they claimed that they are policemen who were killed by gunmen, near the city's Military Police building, in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, north of Damascus, Syria. (photo credit: AP/Bassem Tellawi) Syria’s conflict was sparked by an act of brutality — the detention and torture of schoolchildren who spray-painted anti-government graffiti in a southern city. In the three years since, the conflict has evolved into one of the most savage civil wars in decades. The atrocities have been relentless. Protesters gunned down in the streets. An opposition singer whose vocal cords were carved out. Beheadings and mass sectarian killings. Barrels f...
Read more

7-year-old boy tortured, killed for being Christian.

Image
  7-year-old boy tortured, killed for being Christian . India (GFA/MNN) — Seven-year-old Anmol (AH-NEE-MOHL) laughed and played; he sang songs and learned Bible stories at Sunday school—and later, he was cruelly tortured and killed for being a Christian. A photo of Anmol taken a couple years ago. (Image, caption courtesy GFA) Gospel for Asia’s Danny Punnose says Anmol’s family thought he went to a friend’s house after Sunday School, like he did in the past. But when the young boy didn’t come home, they began to worry. “A couple of days later, they actually found his body,” Punnose states. Harish, Anmol’s father, had filed a missing persons report with the local police Monday, November 18. That same evening, police received a call about a child’s body seen floating in a nearby pond. When Anmol’s parents heard the news, they rushed to the hospital, where the body was taken, and identified the dead child as their son. “It was very clear he was brutally murdered,” reported ...
Read more

Persecution of Buddhists

Image
  Persecution of Buddhists Many adherents of Buddhism have experienced religious persecution TV. Many adherents of Buddhism have experienced religious persecution because of their adherence to the Buddhist practice, including unwarranted arrests, imprisonment, beating, torture, and/or execution. The term also may be used in reference to the confiscation or destruction of property, temples, monasteries, centers of learning, meditation centers, historical sites, or the incitement of hatred towards Buddhists. Sassanids In 224 CE Zoroastrianism was made the official religion of Persia, and other religions were not tolerated, thus halting the spread of Buddhism westwards.[1] In the 3rd century the Sassanids overran the Bactrian region, overthrowing Kushan rule,[2] were persecuted[clarification needed] with many of their stupas fired.[1] Although strong supporters of Zoroastrianism, the Sassanids tolerated Buddhism and allowed the construction of more Buddhist mon...
Read more

On this day in 1943, Japanese launch a banzai charge during the Battle of Attu.

Image
  On this day in 1943, Japanese launch a banzai charge during the Battle of Attu. That battle would soon end with an American victory! The Japanese had held two of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands for nearly a year—but now we’d won one back. The second would soon follow. The Battle of Attu was the only land battle fought in North America during World War II, yet somehow it has earned the tag, “The Forgotten Battle.” How can that be? We suffered more than 3,000 casualties, including 549 dead, at Attu. Shouldn’t more Americans know about it? And how did World War II make its way to the Aleutian Islands, anyway? There are several theories. Possibly, the Japanese were worried that we’d use the islands to launch an attack. The Aleutian Islands stretch westward across the Pacific, so such a use was possible. Or perhaps the Japanese wanted to launch their own attack on us, using the islands as a base. Or maybe they were simply working on their defensive perimeter in the Pacific. To this day, Jap...
Read more

The unthinkable, Sad Generation 😢

Image
  The unthinkable, Sad Generation 😢 We are dating people who are busy doing meet ups with other people while we still in the picture, people who are brave to sleep with someone else and come back to sleep with you, a person who will look deep in your eyes and say I love you while they don't mean it.💔 That's how messed up we are as a nation. We are a generation were alcohol is turned into cool drinks😭, Relationship are hobbies🚮, Breaking a girls virginity is an achievement😞, Hurting someone is a joke🤦🏽‍♂️, Beating up your girlfriend is a discipline💔, Suicide becomes natural Death ⚰️ and cheating is a part of relationship 😭💔. Our generation is lost💔😢 truely gone 💔😭in fact Relationships Are Now Toxic. Student Reporters  Someone said- "Unhappy Generation". 📌 We are dating people who are busy doing meet ups with other people while we are still in the pucture. People who are brave to sleep with someone else and come back to sleep with you.  A person who will ...
Read more