Social security numbers for animals?Tired of trying to determine who's who among their prosimian prosimian: see primate. primates, staff at the Duke University Primate Center in Durham, N.C., this month began injecting microchips into the animals. Now, to learn a primate's identity, researchers merely pass a scanner over the area where they placed the chip. The readout reveals the chip's -- and the animal's -- ID number. The Duke prosimians, which include lemurs, lorises, and bush babies, are joining a growing number of microchipcarrying animals in zoos and elsewhere. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (A.S.P.C.A.), chartered in 1866 in New York by Henry Bergh to shelter homeless animals, to assist farmers in caring for their livestock, and to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in the prosecution of , which donated the chips to Duke, began inserting similar IDs this month in all cats and dogs Cats and Dogs A slang term referring to speculative stocks that have short or suspicious histories for sales, earnings, dividends, etc. Notes: In a bull market analysts will often mention that everything is going up, even the cats and dogs. released from its seven New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. shelters. Breeders of ratites use microchips in these flightless flightless see ratite. avian livestock as well (SN: 7/30/94, p.72). Duke veterinarian Patricia Feeder has placed chips in 20 of the center's 500 prosimians. Researchers want to make sure that the microchips stay put in the captive primates before using them in animals released into the wild, says Feeser. The chips would replace collars, dyes, and tags, all of which have disadvantages, she adds. |
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