Eng151 Literature Review Sample

“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

Various primates show ability in their environment, some concepts may exist to other than human species or it may not. The author explains in depth the certain behaviours that come with forms of communication. Throughout this article, understanding the behavioural reasoning to observe predictions from one another. Social environment has been said to be suggested to represent the components. This mainstream article published online has a brief report and explains the facts by categories and only facts not opinions or comments. The specific format which describes the details right away and by the following paragraphs that help me understand it easier because it is not hard to read, the concept is right then and there. I like the fact that this article demonstrates the behavior of primates in formats that are understandable and can represent debate lies. Within assumption the examples given of behavior were simply a chimpanzee trying to go up a tree. A few chimpanzees took different roles tring to help each other up a tree. Experiments are said to look for evidence for primate subjects not just performing an act but also understanding

Despite a lack of scientific academic education, Jane Goodall’s work on the chimpanzees made revolutionary breakthrough in the field of understanding chimpanzee behavior. It was all made possible by her firm belief on her unconventional methods which academics in the field eyed with cynicism and felt was pointless. Such pessimistic outlook on her efforts from established academics did not blight her morale; instead she carried on with her methods of analyzing the chimpanzee population with full enthusiasm and self belief.

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

1. The social structure and behavior of chimps in their communities or troops suggest many questions. What research questions might Dr. Hahn and her associates ask?

This paper aims to study the traits of non-human primates. By observing two types of primates including Common Squirrel Monkey (Saimiri sciureus) and Western Gorillas (Gorilla Gorillas), I try to find out their characteristics, pattern of their behavior, and differences between these two primate species. Especially, characteristics and behavior such as social interaction, food acquisition and intelligence will be discussed and compared in this paper. In order to enhance the persuasiveness of my observation, I recorded and examined at least 25 distinct characteristics of both Common Squirrel Monkeys and Western Gorillas. It is also helpful for me to compare these two primates. Apart from exploring the primates’ traits and differentiation between them, this paper will discuss the effects of captivity. How being in captivity and on display in a zoo would influence their behaviors and emotions? The observation was a great success and I have successfully derived with a hypothesis base on our observing data. The ultimate goal of this paper is arousing humans’ awareness of the importance of studying primates.

Chimpanzees (Figure 1) are the closest living relatives to us, and they share 99 percent of our DNA (1). Chimpanzees have distinct group territoriality. Male chimpanzees “patrol” near the boundary between the two ranges, at that time they move very carefully and quietly, and they can cease to listen and observe the range of their neighbors. Patrolling individuals are likely to face cruel and violent

Precise information is derived from these observations due to the scientific fact that infant monkeys and human infants “exhibit no fundamental differences“. Harlow’s research primarily revolved around the study of infant rhesus monkeys and their level of desire to bond with surrogate mother monkeys. Two surrogate mothers were equally available to each baby monkey. Observation of tolerance was recorded as each monkey passably chose between a welded-wire surrogate mother and a surrogate mother covered with terry cloth. Results showed that an equal number of monkeys fed from each of the surrogate mothers, however, they spent more time with the cloth mother as they would climb and cling to her. These results significantly disclose the resemblance between humans and monkeys because human infants also covet soft and cuddly toys, blankets, apparel, stuffed animals, etc.

The zoologist Matt Ridley explores the question of why human beings are so cooperative, even though we are built of "selfish genes" in his book: The Origins of Virtue. The book lines up a large selection of examples of cooperation, utilizing different scientific approaches such as economy, sociology, evolutionary biology, anthropology (Rinaldo, 1997). It argues that in some human relationships natural selection promotes virtue and trust, but at the same time humans are egoistic and motivated by self-interest (Leigh, 2000).

In 1988 at the University of Zurich, Eduard Stammbach set up an experiment with long tailed macaque monkeys to determine if they were able to rein aggressive behavior and act cooperatively. Subgroups of monkeys were created, and the lowest ranking monkey was taught to press a set of levers in a specific sequence that caused a machine to deliver popcorn. The high-ranking monkeys noticed the low ranking monkeys’ unique skills. The high-ranking monkeys soon began grabbing all the popcorn. Before long the low ranking monkeys stopped operating the machine. This did not last long because the higher-ranking monkeys began to change their behavior. The higher-ranking monkeys began to approach the lower ranking monkeys more peacefully, and allowed the lower ranking monkeys a share of the popcorn. Furthermore some higher-ranking monkeys began to groom the lower monkeys even when the machine was inoperative.

I hypothesize that altruism is an inheret trait within the chimpanzees in the wild, Trivers, R. L. (1971) suggests that one of the reasons alturims exists is because of group living and the dependence upson one another to survive. Trivers, R. L. (1971) refers to this as the degree of mutual independence, since altruism in H. sapiens is an everyday occurnce I believe that altruism in chimpanzees is also highly likely as our closest living cousins.

Chimpanzees are animals that are capable of determining on who and when to collaborate with when it comes to getting help. They are the only non-human species that posses this ability. Experimenters set up different situations to see if the coral trout fish also had the ability to collaborate with organisms to obtain food or chose to ride solo and obtain the food itself. The experimenter used two different types eels to compare. Some of the eels used were good collaborators to the fish and some eels were bad collaborators, in which just swam away. The trout fish then collaborated with the eel that was most beneficial, which resulted in trapping the prey and being able to benefit both parties. The results concluded that the trout fish were similar to chimpanzees when it came to determining who to collaborate or find beneficial in order to obtain food or other needs.

Also, recent news has reported that chimpanzees (Choi, 2007) and toddlers (China Daily, 2006) have shown true altruistic behaviour.

Van Schaik proposes that primate tool use helps biological anthropologists gain a deeper insight into the evolution of human social learning. However, he argues that population loss and habitat disturbances can affect an orangutan’s ability to teach learned behaviours, such as tool use, to their offspring. The article hypothesizes that tool use traditions in great ape populations varies due to environmental conditions, such as geographic habitat and resource availability.

Altruistic acts are often seen through the benevolent acts of family members express towards each other on a regular basis. Because of the significant amount of genes we share with our kin, the survival of a family is prioritized equally to the survival of the individual. Each member of the family will therefore behave altruistically towards each other, due to the evolutionary drive for survival. The reason that parents behave this altruistically towards their offspring is because “parents (adults) are in a maximally favorable position to dispense inexpensive aid to offspring (eggs) that maximally resembles the parents genetically” (Alexander, 462). Even through altruism is perhaps highest between family members, people also feel more empathetic towards others who possess similar traits, as a large number of genes are share. As altruism “involves a loss of individual fitness, [it] can evolve only by group selection” (Nunney, 228). Therefore, we can see that nature’s force of the survival of the group is a primary driving factor for the appearance of altruism.