Drunk monkeys, it seems, are a lot like drunk people. They drink more when they’re alone, they like to drink after a hard day’s work and they’ll often drink until they fall asleep. You can’t make this stuff up. Apparently you need a team of researchers at the National Institutes of Health Animal Center in Maryland working to find primate parrallels to human alcoholism in order to treat symptoms of relapse. Or they just wanted to see monkeys get smashed.

Paintings by a chimpanzee named Congo sold for more than $25,000 at auction earlier this month, while works by Andy Warhol and Renoir attracted so little attention they had to be withdrawn. The artworks were created by Congo in the late 1950s at the London Zoo. Pablo Picasso owned one of Congo’s works and Salvidor Dali liked the chimp so much he proclaimed, “The hand of the chimpanzee is quasihuman; the hand of Jackson Pollock is totally animal!” (link via Jeremy)

A Mesa, Ariz. police veteran has proposed training a capuchin monkey for high-risk police operations. The SWAT team monkey could unlock doors and search buildings on command, keeping SWAT personnel out of harm’s way. A federal grant would pay for a pilot program to train the monkey, though the idea is still in the proposal stage and hasn’t been cleared by the Mesa police department’s executive ranks.

The Wildlife Conservation Society is auctioning off the chance to name a new species of monkey. The new monkey was discoverd in Madidi National Park in Bolivia in 2000. The auction will begin Feb. 24 at charityfolks.com.

Scientists have discovered a new species of monkey in the Himalayas. The stocky, short-tailed, brown-haired creatures have been named Macaca munzala. While the monkeys were new to scientists, locals were familiar with the animals and called them “mun zala” or deep forest monkeys.

Just when you thought real hobbies were dead and gone, along comes an exhibit of monkey portraiture. It’s actually pretty amazing work, done by photographer Jill Greenberg (don’t recognize the name? poke around her site and you’ll recognize images from magazine covers and ads), and will be on display at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery in […]

When 300-pound gorilla Koko had a toothache, she asked for a dentist. Koko is famous for mastering more than 1,000 American Sign Language signs. She made the sign for pain and pointed to her mouth. Dentists and veterinarians were dispatched to extract a tooth.

A monkey in an Israeli zoo has started walking exclusively on its hindlegs after nearly being killed by a stomach virus. Monkeys usually alternate between walking on all fours and walking upright, but this monkey is walking upright all the time, like a human. So far the only explanation zoo officials have is brain damage, […]

When the zoo says don’t pound on the glass, they mean it. And now they’re giving chimps a way to fight back. Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo opened a new habitat for apes that lets chimpanzees touch a panel and shoot harmless blasts of air at unsuspecting visitors. The new feature should help people and primates […]