Monkeys, capybaras are zoo's odd couple

They're Japan's odd couple.

Capybaras and squirrel monkeys, unlikely neighbors in the wild, are living in the same enclosure at a zoo outside Tokyo and so far, they're loving it.

The monkeys ride on the capybara's backs and kiss the world's largest rodents, who tolerate their tricks. But in the wild, their paths do not cross -- capybara's live on river banks while the monkeys live in forests.

Keepers at the Tobu zoo said it took the capybaras years to tolerate the monkeys...

--Yahoo! News

Monkey flees zoo, attacks bus passenger

MEXICO CITY - A spider monkey that escaped from a Mexico City zoo boarded a bus and attacked a passenger, Red Cross officials said Tuesday. The monkey got on the bus at about 11 p.m. Monday after escaping from the San Juan de Aragon Zoo, Red Cross spokesman Jair Martinez said. Zoo officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The animal sat next to the bus driver for almost an hour as he drove through the city, and scratched and bit a 20-year-old female passenger when she tried to hold it, the Mexican news agency Notimex said...

Yahoo! News

Marmosets may carry their sibling's sex cells

If your testes or ovaries contained the sperm or eggs of another individual, how would you feel about reproducing? This extraordinary situation is experienced by marmosets, which have now been discovered to exhibit "germ line chimerism". It is a condition in which some of the sperm or eggs in their gonads come from another individual, and so do not contain their own DNA.

Marmosets (Callithrix kuhlii) are unusual in that most pregnancies result in non-identical twins, and a high proportion of those result in chimerism. Genetic analysis of these twins shows that all tissues - including skin, hair, brain, lung and muscle - may contain cells derived from the sibling twin...

New Scientist