KINSHASA, Drc. –  A team of British researchers say a tribe of West African bonobo apes living along the lower Congo River are close to developing a primitive version of the World Wide Web.

“It’s really quite fascinating when you look at what they’ve managed to do,” Dr. Daniel Pemberton, who heads the Primate Behavior and Ecology Program at the Imperial College of London, told Sky News. Dr. Pemberton described an “elaborate communications network” strategically positioned throughout the apes’ dense jungle habitat. “Day and night, these magnificent creatures are careening about, going this way and that, advancing rapidly into the modern age.”

Dr. Pemberton and his team have been studying the primates since mid-March when they were involuntarily quarantined at a United Nations Peacekeeping facility not far from the Congolese River. Since then, the team has embarked on “day trips” into the rain forest where they are able to observe the apes from a safe distance.

Andrew Blakeley, Dr. Pemberton’s research assistant and a visiting fellow at the Imperial College of London, spends up to seventy-two hours a week holed up in a hollowed out tree some twenty meters from the habitat. With the help of night vision equipment and a directional microphone, Mr. Blakeley is able to observe the apes in a more intimate manner.

“What we’re witnessing is nothing short sheer brilliance,” the primatologist told Real News Right Now. Later referring to the primitive communications network as a “series of low hanging vines,” Mr. Blakeley surmised that ape-human relations could soon reach previously unthinkable levels. “We may very well be witnessing the emergence of a rival species,” he said, adding, “This could be the most significant scientific breakthrough since the invention of the wheel.”