monkey prostitution is all the rage

[ and yes, this monkey can paint better than you ]

I was recently re-reading a few of my favorite chapters from the 2005 New York Times Bestseller 'Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything' (basically a mishmash of pop culture and econ 101), when I remembered a great little article from several years ago (by the same authors) detailing an experiment looking to teach the value of currency to primates (or specifically, capuchins). According to the Times piece the capuchin "is pretty much focused on food and sex" (sounds pretty intelligent to me), making them perfect for this sort of behavioral study.

The most illuminating passage appears towards the very end, and makes it crystal clear that the capuchins did indeed learn the value of currency as they decide to partake in man’s oldest profession:

“Once, a capuchin in the testing chamber picked up an entire tray of tokens [the currency], flung them into the main chamber and then scurried in after them -- a combination jailbreak and bank heist -- which led to a chaotic scene in which the human researchers had to rush into the main chamber and offer food bribes for the tokens, a reinforcement that in effect encouraged more stealing.

Something else happened during that chaotic scene, something that convinced Chen of the monkeys' true grasp of money. Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of money, after all, is its fungibility, the fact that it can be used to buy not just
food but anything. During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.)"

If these little buggers got away with all this in a lab, in the span of minutes, just imagine what'd they do in Vegas.

Read the article in its entirety here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/05FREAK.html