Characteristics Of Orangutans And Chimpanzees

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.

Bonobo’s are classified within the Genus Pan, Species paniscus.  Pan paniscus is commonly referred to as the pygmy/lesser/dwarf chimpanzee, and gracile ape.  The name bonobo is said to be meaningless, taken from a misspelling on a shipping crate headed to the town of Bolobo in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Primate Info Net) On an interesting note, some taxonomists suggest putting both chimpanzees and bonobo’s in the same Genus as humans, Homo, due to genetic similarities in the species because both are humans closest genetic relatives. (San Diego Zoo 2) (Wildman Et. Al. 2003)

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

I primarily observed three orangutans, one male, one female, and one juvenile, of Sumatran and Bornean descent, scientifically known as Pongo abelli and Pongo pygmaeus, respectively, and to a lesser extent, two gibbons known as siamangs, or Symphalangus syndactylus. These primates share the same enclosure in the San Diego Zoo in California. I observed the orangutans from 12:58 P.M. to 2:00 P.M. CST on September 19th. During this time frame, the three orangutans mainly stayed high up in their man-made structures, consisting of multiple metal bars covered with nets, ropes, and hammocks. The female and juvenile orangutans stayed above ground from 12:58 P.M. to 1:31 P.M., and again from 1:48 P.M. until 2:00 P.M, approximately 45 minutes. During

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.

Primates first evolved from the trees of tropical forests, later to the ground. Through the times of promisians to human, many characteristics has been represented due to the adaptations to new environments and resulted in evolutionary changes. The Earth has encountered several geological and climatic changes over time. For the primates existed at that time had to adjust itself especially in body configurations and locomotion in order to better survive. It is important to be aware of this information since we are the part of occurring changes as well. Throughout the evolution owing to

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.

On Friday, March 31, a observation study was conducted at the L.A. Zoo. The time of arrival for the observation was at 11:48 am and the end of the observation was at 2:42 pm. The weather condition at the zoo was very sunny with a mild gust of wind every so often, which is a perfect weather condition to conduct a study. The main reason for conducting this observation study was to study and gather information about the many different types of primate that are located at the zoo. To see how different or similar each primate is to one anotherin different aspects.

Due to the higher degree of intelligence, different types of primates engage in different complex social groups. The three main ways to group primate societies are monogamous, polygynous and multi male multi female groups.

What makes us human is a question that many people ask. What makes us different from other creatures that lived and live today? Anthropologist study primates to understand how we evolved to humans and why we do and act in certain ways. Primates are our closest relatives which makes them the perfect animals to study to gain some insight into our personal behavior. Because things such as culture can not be fossilized for us to study, we must look at primates to learn how we evolved and our behavior.

Humans and primates engage in social interaction in their everyday lives. Although sometimes primate interaction is vastly different from human social interaction, there is some overlap. As far as social interaction, the female chimps are more likely to side with the dominant male chimp who shared the watermelon with them in future [dominant male vs dominant male] conflict is similar to humans supporting and respecting those who have supported them. Chimps and humans have a culture and pass information from generation to generation. Both do follow “cultural rules” but how the information is transferred is rather different.

The primate order to which we as humans belong can be divided into two sub-orders: the Strepsirrhini, also known across much literature as prosiminans, containing lemurs and lorises and the Haplorrhini containing tarsiers, monkeys and apes. The Strepsirrhini divide further into Lemuriformes and Lorisiformes, and the Haplorrhini divide into Tarsiiformes and Simiiformes, also known as anthropoids which consist of apes and humans. The Simiiformes divide into Platyrrhini (New World monkeys) and Catarrhini (Old World monkeys and hominoids), (Napier, 2014). Fig.1 attached shows the divisions of primate classification. Primates have various characteristics that identify them from other vertebrates such as, opposable thumbs, nails

Primates, especially Chimpanzee 's, are one of the closest relatives to Homo sapiens on planet Earth today. With the development of zoos in modern society, the observation of these animals has become a relatively easy task and have allowed for humans to observe their actions and behaviors in close proximity and in an in-depth manner. I have been to numerous zoos throughout my lifetime and have viewed all sorts of different primates and in particular chimpanzee 's. Chimpanzees are highly interesting as they are closely related to humans and many of their behaviors are similar to that of humans yet, they are taken out of their natural environments and put in these so called zoo 's. Over my time viewing these animals from previous trips to the zoo, it seems that every time I went to the Chimpanzee exhibit there was less excitement than anticipated and the Chimp 's seemed to very relaxed and essentially just sat or laid around for hours upon hours. After taking this into consideration, I wanted to test the reasons for this relaxed state and answer the question of why the Chimpanzee 's seem so relaxed and somewhat docile when in captivity? Why are they so relaxed around the hundreds of zoo goers that go in and out of the zoo every day? Do they not view them as a threat? These questions helped me form my hypothesis of if a chimpanzee is in captivity it will have a more relaxed nature than it being in its own natural habitat due to having no predators and scheduled feeding times.

Orangutans are amongst the most iconic species in wildlife conservation (Meijaard, E., Wich, S., Ancrenaz, M., & Marshall, A J., 2012) Their behaviours and facial expressions give them an uncannily human like personality. Their genetic comparisons, cognitive and behavioural similarities indicate a close evolutionary relationship between humans and themselves. [REF] There are two species of the Orangutan, the Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii) and the Bornean Orangautan (Pongo pygmaeus). The Sumatran orangutan belongs exclusively to the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. This species is rarer than its Bornean equivalent. The Sumatran orangutan lives mainly amongst the trees of tropical rainforests, and rely heavily on these forests for survival.

The next study regarding primates was seen in 2010 while observing wild chimpanzees in Uganda, with cultural differences between two populations in different areas. The chimpanzees displayed different ways of utilizing tools around them to retrieve honey within the fallen logs around them. The Kibale Forest chimps used sticks while the Budongo Forest chimps utilized leaves sponges that were made from chewed leaves. To study the differences, researchers provided the monkeys with a task to retrieve honey out of an apparatus. Each group resorted to behaviors that they had been familiar with in the beginning, those from Kibale using sticks and Budongo resorting to leave sponges (Cell Press, 2010). Klause Zuberhuler (Cell Press, 2010) from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland noted that the reason for the differences in tools ‘was that chimpanzees resorted to preexisting cultural knowledge in trying to solve the novel task’ and that ‘culture helped them in dealing with this novel problem.’ The behaviors were specific to each population that they developed through social