Almost Us: Portraits Of The Apes

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Apes look and act far more like humans than other animals. Apes are super apes, just as apes are super monkeys. Portraits of the apes provide some glimpses into our closest cousins.

EXCERPTS: Chimps are tool users in the wild but many practices are seen only in a few places, suggesting that they are passed on by observation and learning. I’ll scatter some tool examples among the pictures and also include examples of communication. In general, the items are only seen in the orangutans and the “three chimpanzees” , not in other wild apes :

Chimps can hammer open tough nuts, seeking out flat stones to use as an anvil. Some will even stabilize the anvil by wedging another stone underneath.

Chimps can mop up insects using a leaf and then eat the insects.

A chimp will even make a thin stick into a tool by stripping off leaves and protrusions, then punching through the ground into an underground termite nest, and eating the defending termites that cling to the stick when it is withdrawn.

Chimpanzee Politics: subordinate males will form coalitions to control the power of a dominant chimp.

NOT SEEN: A chimp coalition playing against another coalition, as in the ad hoc teams of humans for various games.Only chimps and humans exhibit both the cooperative hunting of game and the gang warfare that often kills a lone neighbor. In both, the males act as a bonded “band of brothers.”

Some chimps will use a stick to comb tangles out of their hair.

The royal wrist: adult apes may extend the back of their hand to be kissed by an infant, which reassures it.

When fruit is out of reach, some wild chimps will use a long stick to hook and pull down a branch.

The often-deprecated nonreproductive sexual behaviors occasionally seen in chimpanzees, gorillas, and humans are seen in almost every bonobo.

A bonobo may play a version of blindman’s buff, holding a hand over his eyes or draping a blanket over his head – and then show off how well he can balance on a rope or bounce off the walls without looking where he is going.

An orangutan will use a stick to scratch its back.

Orangutans can grab a sleeping slow loris and kill it with a bite to the head.

NOT SEEN: group hunting.

To get across a wide gap, a female orangutan bit through a thick vine and then used it to swing across, Tarzan style.

In zoo settings, orangutans are much faster to learn tool use than chimpanzees and are also more creative.

NOT SEEN: Orangutan Politics for establishing alliances that prevent a big male from dominating.

Sharing food with friends, and not just family, has not been seen in wild gorillas.

No “Gorilla Politics”: Males do not form coalitions to limit the power of the dominant silverback male.