A group of chimpanzees in Zambia have resurrected an old fashion trend with a surprising new twist. Fifteen years after a female chimpanzee named Julie first stuck a blade of grass into her ear and started a hot new craze among her fellow chimps at the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage, an entirely new group of chimps at the refuge have started doing the same thing. Jake Brooker, a psychologist and great apes researcher at Durham University in England, said they were really shocked that this is happening again. “We were even more shocked that they were putting their own spin on this by also inserting the grass and sticks in a different orifice,” said Brooker. The chimps, he said, have been putting blades of grass and sticks into their ears and butts, and simply letting them dangle there for no apparent reason. A recent study sheds light on how social-cultural trends spread and change among the primates, much like they do among humans. The team traced the new quirk to a male chimp named Juma, who seems to have originated the grass-in-butt variation. It spread rapidly to most of the other primates within a week. Much like humans, Brooker says the chimps appear to be willing to suffer for the sake of fashion.
