About The Chimpanzee: A Creature That We Continually Underestimate Yellow Magpie

About The Chimpanzee: A Creature That We Continually Underestimate

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are said to be our closest living relatives. Those large brown, inchoate eyes and knowing intelligence seem to subtly indicate that there is much more to chimps than meets the eye. Whenever chimps are talked about, a discussion about human beings is sure to follow. The two species are so closely related, sharing 98.9% genetic material, that it is not too difficult to see why.

Chimpanzee 1024x667 About The Chimpanzee: A Creature That We Continually Underestimate

Male chimpanzees can grow up to 1.2 metres (4 feet) in height and they can weigh up to 70 kg (154 lbs). Chimps live as long as 60 to 70 years in captivity. However, in the wild they usually live up to 35 years of age. Apart from captive chimps, wild chimpanzees are found in Western and Central Africa.

Huge Intelligence

Chimps are an unusual thing in nature, a rare mix of brawn and a brain that is rivalled only by our own human intelligence. They have the ability to use tools, to use language, and to learn quickly. Like Dolphins, they can also recognise themselves in a mirror. They also use gestures and language to communicate with one another. Some experts have found that chimps use sounds for objects much in the same we way that we arbitrarily use words. In terms of raw strength, chimps are five times stronger than humans.

Like most animals, humans tend to project their own fantasies or myths onto animals. Unfortunately, chimps have fared no differently and have often been victim to human insecurity. Chimpanzees are still held to be mimics, an animal which clown human behaviour in zoos. A poor man’s distant relative.

Ape Myth

A 1950s experiment designed to show that chimps were mere mimics completely backfired on the experimenters. The study involved a young chimp and human infant of the same age. Researchers would note the interaction between the two and they hoped to demonstrate that the young chimp was merely aping the behaviour of the human infant. However, the researchers observed, contrary to their expectations, that it was the infant human which mimicked the chimp and not vice versa. Concern over the welfare of the child’s development meant the experiment was quickly halted.

Human Mimics

It is now known that humans are the mimics not chimps. Conversely, it is mimicry that has resulted in the success of humans. The ability to copy other people’s actions has lead to our success as a species. Whereas humans are happily socially obedient, chimps on the other hand, are far more likely to do their own thing rather than copying social conventions. While chimps do learn from one another they are not as slavish in their devotion to other people’s thoughts and actions as we are and this is probably the critical difference between the two species.

Chimp Culture

There are ‘chimp cultures’. Some use twigs to catch insects and rocks to crack open nuts. While some groups of chimps swallow folded leafs to remove parasites from their oesophageal linings as a form of medicine.

Like humans, chimps are emotionally expressive creatures and appear to laugh and smile as they go about their lives. They also have incredible memories. Tests conducted by Japanese scientists show that chimpanzee’s short term memory, especially young chimps, is far better than even college graduates’ memories.

Bipedal Chimp

One of the key discernible differences between humans and chimpanzees is bipedalism, or the ability to walk on two legs instead of all-fours. However, in the 1960s a bipedal chimp, called Oliver, caused people to rethink their preconceptions about chimpanzees. In fact, some even went as far as to suggest that Oliver was a human/chimpanzee hybrid. Others touted the idea that he was the ‘Missing Link‘. Modern genetic DNA analysis has shown that Oliver is in fact a chimpanzee. However, he is far from being a common chimpanzee. There are crucial differences in his genetic make-up that differentiates him from other chimps. As a result of this, some people have suggested that he is a member of a rare or lost species of chimpanzee.

Chimpanzees were quite common, much more so than humans. There are much more genetically diverse than humans which is indicative of being a commonplace species. By default, this means that humans were once quite rare. However, this trend has been reversed and now there are estimated to be only 100,000 chimpanzees left in the wild.

What stokes our burning fascination with chimps cannot be fully answered. A mere suggestion would be that chimps and humans are next of kin. As our nearest family relative, chimpanzees are perhaps in the best position to tell us who we really are.