Wayne Smith

March 31, 2015

Anthropology 1020 Monday 7-10
The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend
In the most previous Planet of the Apes movie it talked about how the world started to
change dramatically because of a disease that spread rapidly across the world killing most of the
human civilization and enhancing the monkey/ape intellect. What was interesting is that the
movie surrounded a group of monkeys and apes that were all living together, which is strange
because in the real world the different species of primates would not live together. Species kept
to their own species, I almost would think that mixing primate species together would fail and
not last. My hypothesis is that in dire need primates would all come together in unity to save
each other from the potential dangers of the world.
The title of this reflection comes from the movie, Alien vs. Predator. This saying was
brought up by one of the paleontologists when speaking to a friend explained that the predators
that were trying to kill them could be their friend since they both had a common enemy, the
alien. In the same sense that through this viral disease that broke out the primates in the, Planet
of the Apes started living together because they all realized that the true enemy in their eyes
were the humans. The concept that all primates having behavioral plasticity can be a bit hard to
believe, because there are some species of primate that cannot change their way of living or they
would die. It is almost as if the thought of dying supersedes the natural way of living to the
primates in the movie, Planet of the Apes.

I believe that primates do have a part of them that wants to live and will give up their
normal way of living if something extreme threaten their species. I have learned throughout this
class that animals adapt over time because for some reason their way of living was changed or
distorted. One reason why I think multi species living can work within the primate community is
the advantage that primates have in the competition for survival is their practice of living in
societies Dennis ONiel, anthro.palomar.edu. Some animals practice this behavior of living in
groups to protect them against harm, which gives primates all the more reason to be able to
practice living amongst each other to protect against those who endanger their lives most of all,
humans.
Although group living is thought to be an adaptive strategy, it also inevitably leads to
conflict of interests between group members. This is commonly due to competition for access to
limited resources. Living Links Research, Emery.edu This conflict of interest would be the only
thing stopping multi species living, but if the Living Links Research also talks about how it
could be overcome. It has been argued that in order to mitigate the negative effects of withingroup conflicts, prevent aggression and resolve disputes, selection must have favored
peacekeeping mechanisms in group-living animals. Living Links Research, Emery.edu.
These sources are only talking about same species group living so they dont give much
evidence supporting multi species living, but there are different species of monkeys for example,
the capuchins and spider monkey that do naturally live together in harmony. They eat, live, and
socialize in the same habitat and seem to get along ok. There even poses a dominant
characteristic with the capuchins because they are bigger but even that doesnt faze their
relationship with each other.

Work Cited Page

Anthro.palomar.edu, Dennis ONiel. 2000.
Living Links Research, Emery.edu
Planet of the Apes. Dawn of the Apes.