Behaviorism Of Humans And Nonhuman Primates

“In their natural homes in the wild, chimpanzees humans’ closest living genetic relatives”, who are more like us than they’re like gorillas are never separated from their families and troops . “Profoundly social beings, they spend every day together exploring, crafting and using tools to solve problems, foraging, playing, grooming each other, and making soft nests for sleeping each night” . They care deeply for their families and forge lifelong friendships . Chimpanzee mothers are loving and protective, nursing their infants and sharing their nests with them for four to six years . They have excellent memories and share cultural traditions with their children and peers . They empathize with one another and console their friends when they’re upset . They help others, even at a personal cost to themselves . When one of another

Monkeys and humans have been compared for years, we have all heard the expression “Monkey see, Monkey do”. Analyzing individual primates at the Santa Ana Zoo was quite an experience because when I use to hear monkeys I use to only picture one certain appearance and that was a brown monkey with a light brown face, and a long tail. Moneys are not just monkeys, humans aren’t just humans, and apes aren’t just apes they are all primates which is a mammal that has certain characteristics such as: flexible fingers and toes, opposable thumbs, flatter face than other mammals, have eyes that face forward and spaced close together, large and complex cerebrum, and they are also social

Primates are one of the most interesting mammals on earth, not only because of their complex social structures, but because they hold so many similar characteristics to humans. Primates are often cited as our closest living relatives and on two separate occasions I observed four separate species of primates at the San Diego Zoo that can justify their use of their physical characteristics and behaviors that may be similar as well as different to the other primates and ours.


Humans and non-human primates have many behaviors and characteristics in common. Apes and chimpanzees have been studies and closely watched for many years. Scientist and researchers and found many similarities between the apes and chimpanzees with humans. All three are hard working and work with tools. They also make these tools. Another similarity is the fact that they are very social with others of their breed. This is also true about other primates other than apes and chimpanzees, like lemurs, lorises, pottos, and tarsiers. Apes and chimpanzees are able to learn sign language and elementary math skills. All primates have nails instead of claws on their fingers and toes. Both non-human primates and humans all have opposable thumbs. They use these thumbs to be able to pick up things better and they are thumbs that are able to move and touch other parts of the same hand. Non-human primates, including humans, learn by watching their mothers and other family members. For example, chimpanzees learn to make stick tools to stick into holes to get termites to eat. They do this because the mothers never teach them

Throughout the term, reading the book, “Through a Window” by Jane Goodall has been quite intriguing for me, in that it has inspired me with new ideas and perceptions about how our own species has evolved over time. I have really enjoyed seeing the many similarities that hominids share with other primate species, especially chimpanzees. Goodall’s research only further proves that we are not only extremely biologically similar to chimpanzees in our DNA, but have many behavioral similarities as well. The film, “Monkey in the Mirror” also shows support for our likeness in intellectuality. These documented findings on chimpanzee and human resemblances provides the strong evidence needed to conclude the fact that humans do indeed share a common ancestor with great apes.

Within this essay, we will study more in depth the behavioral as well as physical traits of two primates at a zoo from their interaction with their peers to their place in the group. This observation would enable us to further understand the possible existing correlation between humans and primates. First, I studied a female chimpanzee with her baby, and then, a dominant male gorilla, in San Francisco Zoo at about noon, on May 23, 2015, for an hour each. Even though they share some similarities such as having a large brain, living for a long time, and being bored in their enclosure, they are still different; when gorillas are the largest, chimpanzees are the smartest. In fact, chimps use tools to catch food, they would not be able to reach

The fundamental physical prerequisites of people , just like all organisms , are : water, for various metabolic process; foods, to provide energy, raw materials for developing entirely new living matter, as well as chemical substances required for vital reactions; oxygen, to discharge energy from foods materials; heat, to enhance chemical effects; and also pressure, to enable inhaling and exhaling” This like this article and think that it relates to . To be able to understand how humans evolved from early existence forms, we can quickly take a look at our closest relatives, the primates. Primates consist of us (Homo sapiens), the apes, the monkeys, as well as prosimians, for example, the lemur. We can easily be familiar with primate behavior

The use of tools comes to practice everyday as chimpanzees collect food from the jungle. Goodall describes how chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park use straw and blades of grass poke holes to hunt for termites by “squatting beside the termite nest, pushing and withdrawing the long grass stem through a hole”. Moreover, during Gooddal’s research, she observed chimpanzees modifying tools, such as small leafy twigs, thus showing the beginnings of tool making. Chimpanzees in West Africa also use tools to get honey from underground bees’ nests. Recently, scientists found out that chimpanzees living in West Savannah use deadly spears from sticks and hand crafted tools to hunt for small animals.

I have really enjoyed learning in this class and glad I took it because I found it to be very interesting. From learning all these different types of primates, from non-human to human primates, to even developing a better understanding of the evolution of primates and primate behavior. For my final paper, I will be going over and portraying the behavior of non-human primate and human primate. I will be comparing the primates behavior seen over the movies and literatures that we were assigned, to the understandings of evolution. Being able to learn and compare the behavior of non-human primate and the behavior of human primate, it can help further one understandings of how we are similar in physical and biological structures. According to the Wikipedia, “The primate lineage is thought to go back at least 65 million years ago”. (Wikipedia) With this one could say that the evolution of primates have been evolving for quite a while now, and even if we do not look like a non human primate we are similar than we think. The reading materials and the movies we had to watch for this class displayed the behaviors of non-human primate and human primate, some how differed. There are many question about evolution, and to how we were created? are there other reasons deeper than evolution? How much can we learn about evolution by just comparing the different behavior of the primates?

Non human primates’ social organization can provide useful information how human social evolution occurs. We will go over main points of how similar and different non human primates such as chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas’ society are compared to ours, humans.

Play is expressed as being one of the most sophisticated forms of primate-to-primate interaction (Demaru et al. 2015). During play, the main form of emotional communication is through facial expression (Demaru et al. 2015). In humans, facial expressions are a universal display of non-verbal communication, and they are immediately read and responded to by conspecifics that bear witness to them (Cattaneo & Pavesi 2014). Play faces (PF) – an open mouth, or an open mouth with teeth showing- are used to signal the want to play and are influenced by characteristics of the play interaction (Demaru et al. 2015). For instance, aggressive behavior during play can influence the PF (Demaru et al. 2015).

During my research of Orangutans and Mandrills I observed them in captivity at the San Diego Zoo. My observations included a 20 minute observation of each primate as it cohabitated with other Primates and with other members of its own species. My findings will support the research of Orangutans and Mandrills through firsthand observations.

Silk, primates were mostly located in Southern Europe and Northern Africa (Boyd and Silk 2014: 114). Also, humans are behaviorally close to primates such as monkeys, apes, chimpanzees, and other types of animals that are within the same family tree as monkeys. The scientific explanation is that Apes were a separate species, then became chimps (their own species) and that same species became humans. The few individuals that could interbreed with each other eventually shared their gene flow, which then lead to a new formation of species (Worley 2015). This process explains why we humans are close to primates; we have similar features, characteristics and we express our feelings in a similar way.

The species Homo sapiens (human) is compared and contrasted to Pan troglodytes (chimpanzees) by the author. He rapidly clarifies, that several broad areas of research, which suggest that chimps are the closest living relatives to humans. Recently, data has ben obtained from DNA hybridization which suggests that humans, chimpanzees, and gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) are all very closely genetically related. Human DNA and chimpanzee DNA only differs by 1.6%. Gorillas differ another 2.3% from both chimps and humans. Also do gorillas carry a strong implication that the chimps and humans branched off from the rest of the primates at the same time through a common ancestor.

The Chimpanzee is another close relative of us that is affected greatly by human activity. However since chimp populations is spread our