See?

Some people seem to think that our calm, reasonable warnings about the Animal Uprising™ are meant to be humorous. Others take out restraining orders and make us stop calling them. (We suspect they have gone over to the animals.) We now get fairly regular visits from that nice man from the health department as well offering us stylish, long sleeved white sport coats. (We decline, though, one just doesn't wear white after Labor Day). But now you'll all have to take us seriously! Because the major media is reporting on the Animal Uprising at last!

Spear-wielding, super chimps stabbing things gets their attention!

Chimpanzees living in the West African savannah have been observed fashioning deadly spears from sticks and using the tools to hunt small mammals — the first routine production of deadly weapons ever observed in animals other than humans.

The multistep spearmaking practice, documented by researchers in Senegal who spent years gaining the chimpanzees' trust, adds credence to the idea that human forebears fashioned similar tools millions of years ago.

The landmark observation also supports the long-debated proposition that females — the main makers and users of spears among the Senegalese chimps — tend to be the innovators and creative problem solvers in primate culture.

Using their hands and teeth, the chimpanzees were repeatedly seen tearing the side branches off long, straight sticks, peeling back the bark and sharpening one end. Then, grasping the weapons in a "power grip," they jabbed them into tree-branch hollows where bush babies — small, monkeylike mammals — sleep during the day.

In one case, after repeated stabs, a chimpanzee removed the injured or dead animal and ate it, the researchers reported in yesterday's online issue of the journal Current Biology.

"It was really alarming how forceful it was," said lead researcher Jill D. Pruetz of Iowa State University, adding that it reminded her of the murderous shower scene in the Alfred Hitchcock movie "Psycho." "It was kind of scary."

(A remake of Psycho using an all chimp cast would be brilliant.) So there you have it - validation for all the information we have been bringing to our faithful readership for all this time.