   #copyright

Chimpanzee

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Mammals

                   iChimpanzees
   Common Chimpanzeein Cameroon's South Province
   Common Chimpanzee
   in Cameroon's South Province
             Scientific classification

   Kingdom:   Animalia
   Phylum:    Chordata
   Class:     Mammalia
   Order:     Primates
   Family:    Hominidae
   Subfamily: Homininae
   Tribe:     Hominini
   Subtribe:  Panina
   Genus:     Pan
              Oken, 1816

                                Type Species

   Simia troglodytes
   Blumenbach, 1775

                                   Species

   Pan troglodytes
   Pan paniscus

   Chimpanzee, often shortened to chimp, is the common name for the two
   extant species in the genus Pan. The better known chimpanzee is Pan
   troglodytes, the Common Chimpanzee, living primarily in West, and
   Central Africa. Its cousin, the Bonobo or "Pygmy Chimpanzee" as it is
   known archaically, Pan paniscus, is found in the forests of the
   Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Congo River forms the boundary
   between the two species.

Measurements

   A full grown adult male chimpanzee can weigh from 35-70 kg (75-155
   pounds) and stand 0.9-1.2 m (3-4 ft) tall, while usually females weigh
   26-50 kg (57-110 pounds) and stand 0.66-1 m (2-3.5 ft) tall.

Lifespan

   Chimpanzees rarely live past the age of 40 in the wild, but have been
   known to reach the age of 60 in captivity, and Tarzan star Cheeta is
   still alive as of 2006 at the age of 74.

Chimpanzee differences

   Anatomical differences between Common and Pygmy Chimpanzees are slight,
   but in sexual and social behaviour there are marked differences. Common
   Chimpanzees have an omnivorous diet, a troop hunting culture based on
   beta males led by a relatively weak alpha, and highly complex social
   relationships; Bonobos, on the other hand, have a mostly herbivorous
   diet and an egalitarian, matriarchal, sexually receptive behaviour. The
   exposed skin of the face, hands and feet varies from pink to very dark
   in both species, but is generally lighter in younger individuals,
   darkening as maturity is reached. Bonobos have longer arms and tend to
   walk upright more often than the Common Chimpanzee.

History of human interaction

   Africans have had contact with chimpanzees for millennia. The first
   recorded contact of Europeans with chimps took place in present-day
   Angola during the 1600s. The diary of Portuguese explorer Duarte
   Pacheco Pereira (1506), preserved in the Portuguese National Archive
   (Torre do Tombo), is probably the first European document to
   acknowledge that chimpanzees built their own rudimentary tools.

   The first use of the name "chimpanzee", however, did not occur until
   1738. The name is derived from a Tshiluba language term
   "kivili-chimpenze", which is the local name for the animal and
   translates loosely as "mockman" or possibly just "ape". The
   colloquialism "chimp" was most likely coined some time in the late
   1870s. Science would eventually take the 'pan' occurring in
   'chimpanzee' and attribute it to Pan, a rural ancient Greek god of
   nature. Biologists would apply Pan as the genus name of the animal.
   Chimps as well as other apes had also been purported to have existed in
   ancient times, but did so mainly as myths and legends on the edge of
   Euro-Arabic societal consciousness, mainly through fragmented and
   sketchy accounts of European adventurers. Apes are mentioned variously
   by Aristotle, as well as the Bible.

   When chimpanzees first began arriving on the European continent,
   European scientists noted the inaccuracy of these ancient descriptions,
   which often falsely reported that chimpanzees had horns and hooves. The
   first of these early trans-continental chimpanzees came from Angola and
   were presented as a gift to Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange in 1640,
   and were followed by a few of its brethren over the next several years.
   Scientists who examined these rare specimens were baffled, and
   described these first chimpanzees as " pygmies", and noted the animals'
   distinct similarities to humans. The next two decades would see a
   number of the creatures imported into Europe, mainly acquired by
   various zoological gardens as entertainment for visitors.

   Darwin's theory of evolution (published in 1859) spurred scientific
   interest in chimpanzees, as in much of life science, leading eventually
   to numerous studies of the animals in the wild and captivity. The
   observers of chimpanzees at the time were mainly interested in
   behaviour as it related to that of humans. This was less strictly and
   disinterestedly scientific than it might sound, with much attention
   being focused on whether or not the animals had traits that could be
   considered 'good'; the intelligence of chimpanzees was often
   significantly exaggerated. At one point there was even a scheme drawn
   up to domesticate chimpanzees in order to have them perform various
   menial tasks (i.e. factory work). By the end of the 1800s chimpanzees
   remained very much a mystery to humans, with very little factual
   scientific information available.
   Chimpanzee in a zoo.
   Enlarge
   Chimpanzee in a zoo.

   The 20th century saw a new age of scientific research into chimpanzee
   behaviour. Prior to 1960, almost nothing was known about chimpanzee
   behaviour in their natural habitat. In July of that year, Jane Goodall
   set out to Tanzania's Gombe forest to live among the chimpanzees. Her
   discovery of chimpanzees making and using tools was groundbreaking, as
   it had previously been believed that humans were the only species to do
   so. The most progressive earlier studies on chimpanzees were
   spearheaded primarily by Wolfgang Köhler and Robert Yerkes, both of
   whom were renowned psychologists. Both men and their colleagues
   established laboratory studies of chimpanzees focused specifically on
   learning about the intellectual, particularly the problem-solving,
   abilities of chimpanzees. This typically involved basic, practical
   tests on laboratory chimpanzees, which required a fairly high
   intellectual capacity (such as how to solve the problem of reaching an
   out-of-reach banana). Notably, Yerkes also made extensive observations
   of chimpanzees in the wild which added tremendously to the scientific
   understanding of chimpanzees and their behaviour. Yerkes studied
   chimpanzees until World War II, while Köhler concluded five years of
   study and published his famous Mentality of Apes in 1925 (which is
   coincidentally when Yerkes began his analyses), eventually concluding
   that "chimpanzees manifest intelligent behaviour of the general kind
   familiar in human beings ... a type of behaviour which counts as
   specifically human" (1925).

   Common Chimpanzees have been known to attack humans on occasion. There
   have been many attacks in Uganda by chimpanzees against human children;
   the results are somtimes fatal for the children. Some of these attacks
   are presumed to be due to chimpanzees being drunk and mistaking human
   children for the Western Red Colobus, one of their favorite meals. The
   dangers of careless human interactions with chimpanzees are only
   aggravated by the fact that many chimpanzees perceive humans as
   potential rivals, and by the fact that the average chimpanzee has over
   5 times the upper-body strength of a human male. As a result virtually
   any angered chimpanzee can easily overpower and potentially kill even a
   fully grown man, as shown by the attack and near death of former NASCAR
   driver Saint James Davis.

Studies of language

   Scientists have long been fascinated with the studies of language, as
   it was potentially the most uniquely human cognitive ability. To test
   the hypothesis of the human-uniqueness of language, scientists have
   attempted to teach several species of great apes language. One early
   attempt was performed by Allen and Beatrice Gardner in the 1960s, in
   which they spent 51 months attempting to teach a chimpanzee named
   Washoe American Sign Language. Washoe learned 151 signs in those 51
   months. Over a longer period of time, Washoe learned over 800 signs.
   Linguistic critics challenged the animal trainers to demonstrate that
   Washoe was actually using language and not symbols. The null hypothesis
   was that the Gardners were using conditioning to teach the chimpanzee
   to use hand formations in certain contexts to create desireable
   outcomes, and that they had not learned the same linguistic rules that
   humans innately learn.

   In response to this challenge, the chimpanzee Nim Chimpsky was taught
   to communicate using sign language in studies led by Herbert S.
   Terrace. Similarly, after 44 months, Nim Chimpsky learned 125 signs.
   However, linguistic analysis of Nim's communications concluded that
   Nim's use was symbolic, and lacked grammar, or rules in the same sense
   that humans use rules in communicating via language. The average,
   college-educated English speaker has a vocabulary of greater than
   100,000 words, which means humans learn roughly 14 words per day
   between ages 2 and 22, compared to the chimpanzee vocabulary learning
   rate of roughly 0.1 words per day.

Taxonomic relationships

   The taxonomic relationships of Hominoidea
   Enlarge
   The taxonomic relationships of Hominoidea

   The genus Pan is now considered to be part of the subfamily Homininae
   to which humans also belong. Biologists believe that the two species of
   chimpanzees are the closest living evolutionary relatives to humans. It
   is thought that humans shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees and
   gorillas as recently as four to seven million years ago. Groundbreaking
   research by Mary-Claire King in 1973 found 99% identical DNA between
   human beings and chimpanzees, although research since has modified that
   finding to somewhere between 95 to 99.4 percent commonality, with at
   least some of the difference occurring in 'junk' DNA. It has even been
   proposed that troglodytes and paniscus belong with sapiens in the genus
   Homo, rather than in Pan. One argument for this is that other species
   have been reclassified to belong to the same genus on the basis of less
   genetic similarity than that between humans and chimpanzees. Indeed
   cladistic taxonomy, based on both genetic difference and date of likely
   divergence, is very clear in placing both extant species of Pan in the
   genus Homo, mainly because the genus Homo takes precedence on account
   of being coined first. It is very important, however, to consider where
   the differences in the genome appear. A study published by Clark and
   Nielsen of Cornell University in the December 2003 issue of the journal
   Science highlights differences related to one of humankind's defining
   qualities — the ability to understand language and to communicate
   through speech. These macro-phenotypic differences, however, may owe
   less to physiology than might be assumed given that Homo sapiens
   developed modern cultural features long after the modern physiological
   features were in place and indeed competed averagely against other
   species of Homo with regard to tools, etc for many millennia.
   Differences also exist in the genes for smell, in genes that regulate
   the metabolism of amino acids and in genes that may affect the ability
   to digest various proteins. See the history of hominoid taxonomy for
   more about the history of the classification of chimpanzees. See Human
   evolutionary genetics for more information on the speciation of humans
   and great apes.

Fossils

   Many human fossils have been found, but chimpanzee fossils had not been
   described until 2005. Existing chimpanzee populations in West and
   Central Africa do not overlap with the major human fossil sites in East
   Africa. However, chimpanzee fossils have now been reported from Kenya.
   This would indicate that both humans and members of the Pan clade were
   present in the East African Rift Valley during the Middle Pleistocene.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
