About the chimpanzee

The chimpanzee is an ape that lives in rainforests, dry savannah, and grassland across equatorial Africa. There are two species of chimpanzee; the common chimpanzee (which has four subspecies) and the Bonobo, or pygmy chimpanzee. Bonobos live only in a small area of land south of the Congo River.

An endangered species, chimpanzees are threatened by forest destruction and increasing human populations that move further into their home ranges, as well as by hunters who sell their meat to the urban rich. They have completely disappeared from several of the countries they used to be numerous in.

Chimpanzees eat mostly fruit but they are omnivores and occasionally eat other plants, small animals, and birds. Bonobos are more herbivorous and generally don’t eat animals. They can live from 40-50 years in the wild. They can be recognized easily by their brown or black hair, opposable thumbs, large ears, and large, expressive lips that protrude from the face. Bonobos are the same size as chimps but have a slenderer build. The chimpanzee has a white patch on its rump, which turns dark as it gets older, but the bonobo keeps its white patch for life.

Our closest relative

Humans and chimpanzees are almost 99% genetically identical, making the chimpanzee our closest animal relative. Some scientists have even proposed renaming the chimpanzee species to include them in the genus Homo, the human family. (The scientific name for humans is Homo sapiens). Scientists who have been studying and comparing the genes think that gene expression explains the big differences there seem to be between humans and chimpanzees. That means that though we have the same genes as chimpanzees, our genes act differently to cause different developments. Genetic researchers have also found slight differences in the two genes that regulate smelling, and speech and language, and they may find more differences in the future.

Intelligence and creativity

Many chimpanzees have proven that they are smart to the researchers who observe and work with them in the wild and in captivity. There is no doubt that they are very close to humans in this respect. Their brains and nervous systems are comparable to those of humans and, though many people have been reluctant to believe it, the chimpanzee’s social behaviour, intellectual ability, and emotions are all undeniably similar to our own. They have shown a remarkable capacity to communicate, manipulate their surroundings, and even create.

It seems simple to us humans, but using a tool is actually quite a complex act that few animals engage in. Chimpanzees are famous for the variety of tools they make and use, including rock hammers and anvils for cracking open nuts, and twig wands to collect insects and scoop algae. Just as you may have been taught to use a fork or brush your teeth by a parent, chimpanzees seem to pass their skills down from mother to child. They learn by observing, imitating, and practicing. For this reason, each community of chimps has its own somewhat unique tool-using culture. Chimpanzees have often been able to solve new problems they encounter using tools as well. For example, Jane Goodall reported that a chimp who was too nervous to take a banana directly from her hand, broke off an appropriate length of stick and knocked it to the ground.

Chimpanzees learn to count easily and can recognize written symbols. They don’t have a verbal language like ours, but some researchers have found a way to converse with our ape cousins. A few chimps have successfully been taught American Sign Language and have communicated their thoughts and feelings to humans, even expressing emotions like sympathy.

Some chimpanzees have displayed a creative side, too. When provided with the materials some chimpanzees have made abstract drawings and paintings. In July 2005, three colourful works painted by a chimpanzee named Congo were even sold at an auction for £12,000 ($26,000 CAN)!

Family life

Chimpanzees typically live in communities of 20 to 100 individuals but they spend time in ever-changing smaller parties. The only group that does not separate is a mother and her dependent children. Each common chimpanzee family has an alpha male that leads other males in hunting or protecting the parameters of the community’s territory. Size isn’t all that matters - chimps can also move up the social ladder through intelligence and by gaining the respect of other group members. The hierarchy is dynamic and dominant chimps are often usurped by offspring and new group members. Males play out their dominance with displays of their power. To a human, this looks like a wild rampage of charging, throwing things, hooting, and general raucous causing. After the performance, the male comforts the chimps he has frightened by touching and hugging them.

In bonobo society, there is not such a strong heirarchy, and it is the females who lead, not the males. They maintain lifelong bonds with their sons, but when a daughter is old enough, she leaves the troop and finds another one to join. She mates with all the males in the new group, and gains permanent membership when she gives birth. Overall bonobo society is more egalitarian than the chimpanzee's, and the female-led troops tend to be relatively peaceful.

A mother chimpanzee gives birth to one baby at a time after an eight-month pregnancy. Though weaned around age three, the young chimp will stay close to his or her mother until reaching puberty between six and eight years old. During this time young chimpanzees learn in a social context, watching and imitating the behavior of their mother and of other family members.

Interestingly, researchers in Tanzania have discovered that female chimpanzees develop skills more quickly than males. They observed that the young females pay more attention to their mothers and learn to catch more termites with a stick more often, while the males spend extra time playing instead. Similar behaviour has been observed of dolphins and researchers believe there may be something to learn from these animals about sex-based learning differences in humans.

Communication

Touch is an important part of chimpanzee communication. Touching, grooming, and embracing are all used by chimpanzees to reassure family members, to greet other chimps, and to reduce antagonistic behavior. Their sense of smell is also important to their social interactions, as each chimp has a distinctive smell detectable in pheromones, urine, feces, or gland secretions. Chimps can identify each other and, to an extent, their moods, based on their smell. 

Facial expressions, physical gestures, and body language allow chimps to communicate visually. They have evolved many facial and body muscles that help them to convey messages. For example, erect hair shows agitation or aggression; grinning portrays fear; prolonged staring is threatening behavior; and hanging the lower lip indicates a calm, relaxed mood. Chimpanzees can also communicate with a variety of calls, grunts, and hoots but their vocal chords don’t allow for the kind of speech that humans are capable of.  

Entertaining apes are anything but entertained

You may have mistakenly thought the chimpanzee you saw on TV was happy because it appeared to be smiling. However, chimpanzees only naturally expose their teeth in a wide grin when they are terrified. Any chimpanzee or ape you see in advertisements or movies definitely has nothing to smile about.

In order to train a chimpanzee for entertainment, trainers take him from his mother as an infant and coach him with frequent beatings. When the apes hit puberty somewhere between the ages of 6 and 8 years, the chimpanzees become more aggressive. At this point abuse becomes more severe and most are considered unmanageable and no longer usable. Because these youngsters did not grow up with their families, they have not learned how to act around other chimpanzees or how to get along with them. Abuse has left them psychologically damaged and disturbed and they usually cannot be integrated into an established social group. Most of these young entertainers will end up confined to small cages in sub-standard zoos, euthanized, or sold for medical research, though they could have lived a healthy 40-50 year life with their families. Indeed, these animals suffer greatly so that we might be entertained.

To make matters worse, for every chimp entertainer or pet you see, more than ten others have probably died. In order to take the babies, mother chimpanzees are usually killed, and then the trauma of being kidnapped and illegally shipped in terrible conditions is such that most of the baby chimps die before even reaching their destinations.

Did you know?

• They usually walk on all four legs but they can and do sometimes walk on just two. Bonobos can walk upright more easily than chimpanzees. 
• Like humans, chimps are active during the day and sleep overnight.
• Chimpanzees are opportunistic eaters, just like us. They will choose sweets over healthy foods when they actually have a choice. Professor Sally Boysen, who has been working with chimpanzees for over 30 years, claims that they will pick a fudgsicle over a carrot any day.
• They may be a bit smaller than humans on average, but chimpanzees are much stronger than us and, when they are feeling aggressive, they are quite capable of harming people.
• Chimps have opposable thumbs and opposable big twos that allow them to grip twice as well as humans can, for example, when traveling through the trees.
• A chimpanzee’s time is divided between the trees and the ground more or less equally. They are well-adapted to both situations.
• Though many animals only have sex for reproductive purposes, it has often been observed that bonobos engage in sexual behaviour all the time, even with members of the same sex. In their society, sexual acts serve to strengthen the social bonds between the bonobos. Even more interesting is that bonobos seem to resolve conflicts with consensual sexual behaviour, whereas any other species would likely resort to aggression and violence.
• One well-known chimp behaviour is grooming, whereby the chimps run their fingers through the hair of a family member or friend. This does remove flakes of dry skin and dirt, but it is more important for social reasons than it is for cleanliness. Grooming seems to solidify the chimpanzees' roles within the social hierarchy, and to convert aggression into calming behavior.