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February 3, 2022
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The Unlikely Rise Of Japan’s Monkey Queen And The Threat To Her Throne
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
A first impression of Yakei, a nine-year-old Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata) living at the Takasakiyama Natural Zoological Garden, generally proves disarming. Of course, this is typically followed by “oohing and ahhing” because of her cute and mischievous antics. After all, Japanese macaques (or snow monkeys) draw hundreds of thousands of tourists each year to their island home where they luxuriate in snow-dusted natural hot springs doing each other’s hair.
But there’s more to Yakei than being a cute and carefree primate who relishes spa treatments. This youthful matriarch has capsized societal norms within her 677-strong member troop. And her struggle to the top of the macaque pecking order represents a singular feat few females even try, let alone achieve.
But now, the one-of-a-kind queen faces new challenges for supremacy inspired by mating season. Check out this primate saga with all the underpinnings of a soap opera.
The Monkey Queen’s Rise to PowerYakei’s ascension to the highest ranks of monkey hierarchy started with an unprecedented challenge to her mother. After a physical altercation, Yakei seized control as the top female in the troop. But her obsessive need to rule the roost didn’t stop there.
Next steps included targeting the four highest-ranking males in the group, and she pursued them with gusto. After taking out the first three males, she attacked Nanchu, the 31-year-old head honcho. Despite his advanced age, she showed no mercy, striking him relentlessly until he handed her the throne. With this turn of events, Yakei had achieved the impossible: total domination of a massive monkey troop (and all the bananas that come with it).
The Rarity of Female Macaque Takeovers
Forget #SuccessionHBO , anyone else glued to the reign of Yakei, the snow monkey, and her smashing of patriarchy?
🥜
https://t.co/gu1Ox1NvUS
— Aki Marceau (@akibomb) January 23, 2022
The young monkey’s behavior isn’t without precedent. Nevertheless, female takeovers within the Japanese macaque world prove incredibly rare. Instead, most macaques live unchallenged within a strict hierarchical order. Sure, benefits accompany higher ranks, like access to more and better food. But most female macaques will never risk fighting alpha males, no matter the food-related temptations.
Instead, they inherit the rank just below their mother’s. End of story. As for male macaques? They sometimes challenge one another to improve their rankings. But these contests remain almost exclusively a boys’ club. These facts make Yakei’s rank-climbing all the more sensational and fascinating. Perhaps most impressive, the young monkey has managed to maintain her privileged position for a year.
Mating Season Could Overturn Yakei’s PositionBut Yakei may have bitten off more than she can chew when it comes to keeping her leadership status. Yu Kaigaishi, a research fellow with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, has noticed changes in Yakei’s behavior since mating season began. The season runs from November to March, and with it has come unwanted courtship advances from an 18-year-old male named Luffy.
As things stand, Yakei still maintains her dominance within the massive troop. But Kaigaishi has seen chinks in the Queen’s armor over the past couple of months. As Kaigaishi explains, “I observed that Yakei showed a facial expression (known as ‘fear grimace’) typical of subordinate individuals against Luffy. Also, I observed Luffy pushing Yakei away to monopolize food.”
Does this mean Luffy is preparing to challenge Yakei for the alpha role? Or is he just smitten? Researchers are taking a wait-and-see approach. After all, all’s fair in love (and bananas).
By Engrid Barnett, contributor for Ripleys.com
EXPLORE THE ODD IN PERSON! Discover hundreds of strange and unusual artifacts and get hands-on with unbelievable interactives when you visit a Ripley’s Odditorium!Source: The Unlikely Rise Of Japan’s Monkey Queen And The Threat To Her Throne
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Feel The Burn With Ivan Djuric’s Hyper-Realistic Pyrography Portraits
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
The Ripley’s Collection features quite an assortment of unusual art — cheese sculptures, portraits made of human hair, pictures crafted using cigarette ash, entire scenes detailed on cockroach bodies, and the list continues on. This artist, Ivan Djuric of Uzice, Serbia, joins the ranks with his hyper-realistic portraits using a technique known as pyrography!
This method of carving and burning dates back to the Nazca and Moche civilizations of Peru as early as 700 AD. There’s also evidence from China, Egypt, and Rome suggesting that pyrography has been around in a primitive form using heated metal rods of various sizes to burn designs into slabs of wood and other objects.
In the middle ages, the process became a bit more efficient. Pyrography artists invented portable wood stoves with small holes and openings to leave their “pokers” or burning tools inside. As the tools heated over the coals of the stove, artists were able to create and swap their instruments, never running out of a hot poker to create with.
It wasn’t until the turn of the 20th century that a process similar to that in place today was created. An architect named Albert Smart discovered that he could use benzene fumes to pump heat through a hollow pencil. As the pencil was made of platinum, it kept warm throughout the entire pyrography process.
Putting Pen to WoodWith a pen-like wood burning tool similar to that early iteration, Ivan Djuric uses varying and precise amounts of pressure to change the intensity of the burn on his pieces. Using this method, he is able to achieve an astonishing amount of detail, with his finished products resembling black-and-white photographs.
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Subjects of his blazing artistry have included Chadwick Boseman, Luciano Pavarotti, Jerry Garcia, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Snoop Dogg.
Take Your Own Step Out of the Box!Challenge yourself to get a little weird, try new things, and step out of your comfort zone with inspiration from Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Out of the Box, available now on Amazon and at most major retailers.
STEP OUTSIDE OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE Experience the stories of adventurers near and far, from a three-year-old mountain climber to hair-hangers and acrobats. Leave inspired by unbelievable talents, breathtaking bucket list-worthy locations, and curious discoveries, all from people just like you as you uncover the pages of Ripley’s newest annual book!Source: Feel The Burn With Ivan Djuric’s Hyper-Realistic Pyrography Portraits
Tonga’s Once-In-A-Millennium Volcanic Explosion
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Unprecedented. Isolation. Uncertainty. All words nobody ever wanted to hear again, yet here we are. No, we’re not having a flashback to 2020 or sounding the alarms about a worldwide health crisis; we’re talking about a volcanic eruption with the strength of “hundreds of Hiroshima bombs.”
It’s been 13 days since a volcano in the Kingdom of Tonga unleashed a devastating fury across the island nation before sending tsunami waves crashing thousands of miles through the Pacific, in an event most accurately described as “off-the-scale weird.”
Many people had never heard of Tonga until January 15, when their news and social media feeds became flooded with warnings of tsunamis accompanied by a jarring image of a massive mushroom-shaped plume seen from space. The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano had officially captured the world’s attention.
The Friendly IslandsKnown as “The Friendly Islands,” the Kingdom of Tonga comprises over 170 coral and volcanic islands, 48 of which are inhabited by around 100,000 people. Despite its pristine beaches, untouched nature, and spectacular snorkeling making it an international tourist magnet, Tonga is the only Pacific Island nation to have never been colonized by a foreign power, with its 1,000-year-strong monarchy remaining the nation’s most powerful entity.
Humble RumblesHunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai erupting isn’t newsworthy in itself. The underwater volcano has a history of volatility. The volcano was preceded by two uninhabitable volcanoes that first breached sea level during a 2009 eruption until a 2015 explosion spewed so much ash and rock that it formed a third, mile-long island that joined them as one big cluster.
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When another rumble began on December 20, 2021, it was thought to be another harmless explosion until early January, when, after a brief period of calm, the eruption became increasingly violent, shooting clouds of ash and record-breaking lightning into the sky. The middle section of the island disappeared on satellite images in a matter of days.
“The thing just went gangbusters,” said Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist and lightning applications manager at Vaisala, a Finland-based weather measurements company. “We were starting to get 5,000 or 6,000 events per minute. That’s a hundred events per second. It’s unbelievable.”
An Eruption of Epic ProportionsThe volcano soon hit its limit during the early hours of January 15, with a colossal explosion so loud the sonic boom was reportedly heard in parts of Alaska and Canada and an atmospheric shockwave so strong it traveled at 1,000 feet per second and affected barometric pressure changes around the globe.
A tsunami quickly followed the explosion, hitting Tonga’s capital of Nuku’alofa, located about 40 miles away from the volcano on the main island of Tongatapu. The incoming waters knocked out power, water, and all means of communication as people scrambled for their lives under the pitch-black sky.
Coastal communities far and wide were put on high alert with smaller tsunami waves surging the coastlines of the Pacific Northwest, Japan, New Zealand, and Peru — where two people lost their lives after being swept away by the swells.
Did we mention the actual eruption only lasted about an hour?
A “Once-in-a-Millenium” EventAn explosion of such epic proportions is believed to be a once-in-a-thousand-year occurrence, leaving scientists eager to understand exactly what caused it to anticipate any future happenings.
“Everything so far about this eruption is off-the-scale weird,” says Janine Krippner, a volcanologist with Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program, adding, “There are far more questions than answers at this point.”
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With communication and air travel still touch and go on the islands, it’s yet to be determined which areas were hit hardest and just how much devastation was left in the eruption’s wake. It has also been impossible for scientists to get close to the volcano to study its activity.
According to Shane Cronin, a professor in volcanology at the University of Auckland, “It takes roughly 900–1,000 years for the Hunga volcano to fill up with magma, which cools and starts to crystallize, producing large amounts of gas pressure inside the magma.” The gases build pressure, making the magma unstable until it explodes, “like putting too many bubbles into a champagne bottle — eventually, the bottle will break.”
For the time being, the main focus is getting Tongans the resources needed to recover from the blast. Several countries have aid ready to be delivered as soon as the thick cloud of ash looming over the islands clears, including safe drinking water, as contamination from debris, ash, and smoke has created a major shortage.
Once assistance can make it to the island, the next challenge will be reconnecting their underwater communication services — and hopefully finding a way to build upon it to avoid future issues.
By Meghan Yani, contributor for Ripleys.com
EXPLORE THE ODD IN PERSON! Discover hundreds of strange and unusual artifacts and get hands-on with unbelievable interactives when you visit a Ripley’s Odditorium!
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