Monkeys, money and Sex: Now we know!

Some Yale researchers taught monkeys to use money using some special tokens. What do you think they went and bought with it? Sex. Probably in the first observed incident of prostitution Monkeykind!

Something else happened during that chaotic scene, something that convinced Chen of the monkeys’ true grasp of money. Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of money, after all, is its fungibility, the fact that it can be used to buy not just food but anything. During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.)

Now, these researchers are worried. While they want it all to be just natural and not deliberately regulate to harm the research.. but then it might be difficult to take it if their lab became a Monkey brothel?? 🙂 Tricky problem huh!

 Technorati : Capuchins, Monkey, Prostitution