Never let it be said that television is not good for your education! When it comes to group of wild monkeys in Brazil, TV is indeed very entertaining AND educational. The group learned new tricks after watching a video of other monkeys doing the same action.

A team led by the University of St. Andrews and the University of Vienna filmed a group of trained monkey performing different techniques to open fruits. That included pulling open a drawer or lifting a lid, as the St. Andrews reports on the university’s website.

These recorded actions were replayed to the group of wild living monkeys in the Brazilian jungle. The video set, placed in a protective case arouse a lot of interest among the primates. They watched the trained monkeys’ performance and afterwards used their new learned abilities to work with a transparent box that included the treat, sitting below the screen.

Short time ago the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University anounced their picks for the top 10 new species described in 2011. It’s the fifth time in a row that attention-grabbing species have been nominated to open the world’s eyes for “the biodiversity crisis and the unsung species explorers and museums who continue a 250-year tradition of discovering and describing the millions of kinds of plants, animals and microbes with whom we share this planet,” as Quentin Wheeler, an entomologist who directs the International Institute for Species Exploration at ASU, said.
When you have a look at the gallery below you will have to admit that this year’s list is quite exquisit. It’s members come from Brazil, Myanmar, the Dutch Caribbean, South Africa, Papua New Guinea, Spain, Borneo, Nepal, China and Tanzania. You will find a  sneezing monkey there, a beautiful but venomous jellyfish, an underworld worm and a fungus named for a popular TV cartoon character.

The nominations had to be “species that capture our attention because they are unusual or because they have traits that are bizarre,” said Mary Liz Jameson, an associate professor at Wichita State University who chaired the international selection committee.  At the institute’s website you will also find a Google world map that pinpoints the location for each of the top 10 new species.