Chimpanzees Research Paper

A few weeks ago, I spent a lovely Monday afternoon observing two different primates at the Santa Ana Zoo. I got to the zoo around two in the afternoon, and to my surprise, the zoo was decently crowded. The Santa Ana Zoo is smaller in comparison to other zoos like the Los Angeles Zoo, but still had a decent amount of animals there. Covering a small 20 acres of land, I came across two primates that fit perfectly for the purposes of this course project. I chose to observe an endangered ape, the white-handed gibbon, and an endangered new world monkey, the golden-headed lion tamarin.

What makes a primate a primate? A primate is defined by its many incredible features. A primate is a mammal that has certain characteristics such as: flexible fingers and toes, opposable thumbs, flatter face than other mammals, eyes that face forward and spaced close together, large and complex cerebrum, and social animals. What makes a primate a primate is its characteristics. Some of the physical features primates are identified by is their teeth, snouts, eyes, ears, arms, legs, fingers, and toes. Human evolution is a big part of humans being primates, and having similar features and characteristics make humans to be considered to be a primate, but both humans and non-humans have differences.

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.

They are very fast and can be able to run within short distances using the most minimal time. It takes less than 10 seconds to run within a distance of approximately 100 meters. While the animals move around they try to monitor the environment as quadrupedally and monitoring of the environment can be able to take as much as up to ten minutes in any case they have doubts of where they are, this alerts them of any predators. Consortship is a situation where the two animals would stay close to each other and monitor the movement and environment of each other. This is done as long as the animals are out in an environment that is not seen as being friendly. The patas can be seen to be less vocal and they move around in silence, they make certain noise only once when they have seen a predator. The noise or the sound takes just a few seconds as long as the danger is taken away

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.

Despite the fact that they are more like human beings, the two species differ in development rates since for primates it is slower. Both species have a social and legal status since there are laws to protect them. The Great Ape Project ensures that bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans are not used for animal experiments. Primates have helped human beings for a long time to test medicine and vaccines on different diseases faced by human beings. They are also used in space missions for instance in testing whether a certain area supports life.

The primates species that I observed were the Bornean orangutans and the Sumatran orangutans. There were three adult females. one adult male, and one infant female. The orangutans were observed at San Diego zoo’s ape webcam on April 26, 2106.

Opening the documentary with scenes of chimpanzees navigating the forest while wielding rudimentary spears is quite frightening. Often, it is thought that humans are the only species on Earth that can make and utilize tools (such as weapons), and that is largely attributed to humans' advanced bipedalism. However, chimps have begun to use stripped down branches that are then sharpened by their teeth to hunt and catch a variety of prey. This means that chimps took distinct steps to create a weapon and conduct a hunt, and that can be related to humans' early ancestors and their rudimentary ways of life. This has major implications for two reasons: the first being that chimps are advancing intellectually and possibly socially as they seem to organize

As humans we try to view our origin as species and it is important for us to understand how we evolved through time. Anthropologists study primates so much because primates have the most similar characteristics to humans, allowing us to learn more about our past. There are a few methods that Primatologists use to make their research relevant to anthropology: field study, laboratory study, and semi-free ranging. Field studying is done in nature, where scientists study primates in their natural habitats. Laboratory study is when the environment is completely controlled, and scientists get to perform experiments on the learning behaviors and capabilities of animals.

Historically, the set of common characteristics among primates have been documented as a consequence of adapting to arboreal living (living in trees). Even though others placental mammals (a very diverse group of close to 4,000 species ranging everything from rodents/bats to humans) were able to adapt to various environments; such as living on land (ground-dwelling) to living in oceans (marine environments), while the primates found their adaptive niche in the trees (the place in which they survival dependent upon such as in terms of proving refugee, their source of food, its habitat, etc.). In addition, the primates were not the only ones who were able to adapt to living in the trees, other mammals were capable of adapting to this way of living, however, the majority of them continued to dependent on the land for their primary source of food. On

Gretchen Vogel, a contributing correspondent for the journal Science, wrote an article on how primate culture can help us learn the roots of human culture. Vogel refers to a primatologists and psychologists research on differences in habits between chimpanzee groups at different locations. The research mostly focuses on chimpanzees and their ability to learn from one another. Vogel writes about the evidence of primate culture that is based on field studies comparing the chimpanzee skills and behaviors in groups around Africa. According to Vogel geographic differences impacts a chimpanzee’s specific behavior and skills. She states that even if we do not consider primate behaviors a culture researchers say that primate traditions may offer insight

There are many instances in Through a Window that showed me how alike chimpanzees and humans really are. For example, on page fifteen, Goodall talks about Lucy. Lucy is a chimpanzee that is trained as if she were a human. She is able to identify pictures and call them by their names, such as “blue” and “dog”. Although Lucy could not verbally say these words, she used American Sign Language, which I think is even more impressive! Chimpanzees are just like babies in this way, they soak up so much information and are able to apply it within their own life. Goodall compares humans and chimpanzees on page sixteen, showing how the anatomy of both brains are very similar, “There are equally striking similarities between humans and chimpanzees in the anatomy and wiring of the brain and nervous system, and – although many scientists have been reluctant to admit this – in social behavior, intellectual abilities and emotions.” It is also proven that chimpanzees can catch human viruses and diseases, unlike other non-human animals. Another example of how humans and chimpanzees are alike was shown when Goodall talked about the baby chimps. Infant chimps are in need of the same things as human infants, “And one cannot watch chimpanzee infants for long without realizing that they have the same emotional need for affection and reassurance as human children.” (Goodall, page 19). Not only do baby chimpanzees need love and affection like humans, they also learn by imitation. A

Project Nim is about a baby chimpanzee that was sent to live with humans as an experiment by Columbia. While the chimpanzee was with his first family under Jenny Lee, the experiment was to try to communicate with the humans. My visceral reaction was heartbreaking and unfortunate of the outcome of experiment. I believe in the beginning under Lee, she did not do a good job working with Nim. Lee didnt control Nim and was a victim to bitings and cuts. Further down the line, he ended up being caged up in a medical research facility because of his behavior of biting and assualt. Watching an animal being caged up and drugged/experimented on is sickening. I believe that animal should be set free to live with his mom in the wild. However, my intellectual reaction understands the these scientist are trying to enhance the human kid.

Violence happens often within the community, whether over petty differences such as stealing food from another or challenging a dominant chimp, but it never lasts long, as the chimpanzees are quick to reassure one another with grooming and hand holding, kissing foreheads or embracing each other. Grooming is another aspect of chimpanzee society that is extremely important to their lifestyle, and can happen up to hundreds of times a day throughout chimp communities. Chimpanzees will often groom each other out of submission, reassurance, happiness or even boredom. Newborns are almost never allowed to be groomed by anyone other than the mother, but as they grow older, children often partake in this ceremony that also could be considered a part of chimp culture instead of necessity. Additionally, grooming and being groomed tie into the hierarchy, as the dominant male or female often allow a grooming session to take place as a sign of forgiveness or submission. Chimpanzees are not lonely animals, and will frequently seek each others company for group grooming sessions, or do activities together. Hunting is a common sport that chimpanzees often use teamwork

Chimpanzees are rated in the top 5 most intelligent animals on earth for several reasons. They possess the ability to recognize things and use numbers and tools. In a test chimpanzees were proven to be able to recognize their face in a mirror. They also can use efficient non-verbal communication and recognize numbers. These are all cool abilities, but the thing chimps are most known for is to be able to build and use tools. One of the first documented experiences with a human and a chimps using tools was with Dr.Goodall. The chimpanzees had used a stick to get termites out of their nest, so that the chimp could eat them. After that chimps have been known to use stem, twigs, branches, leaves, and rocks to make tools. Chimpanzees have made sponges,