死体運搬について

霊長類研究所の松沢氏がチンパンジーの死体運びについて論文を出したということがニュースになった。何が新しいのかさっぱりわからないのだが、一応原文に当たったところ、運搬期間がこれまで知られていた他の地域のチンパンジー事例や、他種よりも長いということだった。正直ぜんぜんだめだめだろ。なにがおもろいのだ。

Summary

The forests surrounding Bossou, Guinea, are home to a small, semi-isolated chimpanzee community studied for over three decades [1]. In 1992, Matsuzawa [2] reported the death of a 2.5-year-old chimpanzee (Jokro) at Bossou from a respiratory illness. The infant's mother (Jire) carried the corpse, mummified in the weeks following death, for at least 27 days. She exhibited extensive care of the body, grooming it regularly, sharing her day- and night-nests with it, and showing distress whenever they became separated. The carrying of infants' corpses has been reported from a number of primate species, both in captivity and the wild [3,4,5,6,7] ― albeit usually lasting a few days only ― suggesting a phylogenetic continuity for a behavior that is poignant testament to the close mother-infant bond which extends across different primate taxa. In this report we recount two further infant deaths at Bossou, observed over a decade after the original episode but with striking similarities.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(10)00218-6

なおチンパンジーにも「死」の意識？人間と似た死者への対応も　国際ニュース : AFPBB Newsの英オックスフォード大学（Oxford University）のドラ・ビロ（Dora Biro）氏率いる研究チームがというのは、明らかに間違い。ここは杉山幸丸が開いた調査地で、現在の研究責任者は一応松沢氏。実際に論文のラストオーサーは松沢哲郎になっている。