Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant Extant is a term commonly used in biology to refer to taxa that are still in existence (living). The term extant contrasts with extinct. For example, Brandt's Cormorant is an extant species, while the Spectacled Cormorant is an extinct species. Likewise, of the group of molluscs known as the cephalopods, there are approximately 600 extant species species In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are often used, such as similarity of DNA, morphology or of ape An ape is any member of the Hominoidea superfamily of primates, including humans. Due to its ambiguous nature, the term ape has been deemphasized in favor of Hominoidea as a means of describing taxonomic relationships in the genus In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank (a taxon) used in the classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia. The term comes from Latin genus "descent, family, type, gender", cognate with Greek: γένος – genos, "race, stock, kin" Pan. The Congo River The Congo River is the largest river in Western Central Africa. Its overall length of 4,700 km (2,920 mi) makes it the second longest in Africa (after the Nile) forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:[2]
- Common Chimpanzee The Common Chimpanzee , also known as the Robust Chimpanzee, is a great ape. The name troglodytes, Greek for 'cave-dweller', was coined by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in his Handbuch der Naturgeschichte (Handbook of Natural History) published in 1779. Colloquially, it is often called the chimpanzee (or simply 'chimp'), though technically this term, Pan troglodytes (West West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 15 countries & an area of approximately 5 million square km: and Central Africa Central Africa is a core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda)
- Bonobo The Bonobo , Pan paniscus, previously called the Pygmy Chimpanzee and less often, the Dwarf or Gracile Chimpanzee, is a great ape and one of the two species making up the genus Pan. The other species in genus Pan is Pan troglodytes, or the Common Chimpanzee. Although the name "chimpanzee" is sometimes used to refer to both species, Pan paniscus (forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo , known until 1997 as Zaire, is a country located in Central Africa, with a small length of Atlantic coastline. It is the third largest country in Africa by area. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is, with the population more than 68 million, the eighteenth most populous nation in the world, and the fourth)
Chimpanzees are members of the Hominidae The Hominidae form a taxonomic family, including four extant genera: chimpanzees, gorillas, humans, and orangutans family, along with gorillas Gorillas are the largest of the living primates. They are ground-dwelling and predominantly herbivorous. They inhabit the forests of central Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and either four or five subspecies. The DNA of gorillas is highly similar to that of a human, between 95 and 99% depending on what is counted, and they are the, humans Humans, known taxonomically as Homo sapiens , are the only living species in the Homo genus of bipedal primates in Hominidae, the great ape family. However, in some cases "human" is used to refer to any member of the genus Homo, and orangutans The orangutans are the only exclusively Asian living genus of great ape. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping nests each night from branches and foliage. They are generally not aggressive and live a mostly solitary life foraging for food. They are the largest living arboreal. Chimpanzees split from human evolution about 6 million years ago and the two chimpanzee species are the closest living relatives to humans, all being members of the Hominini tribe (along with extinct species of Hominina The more anthropomorphic primates of the Hominini tribe are placed in the Hominina subtribe. They are characterized by the evolution of an increasingly erect bipedal locomotion. The only extant species is Homo sapiens. Fossil records indicate this subtribe branched from the common ancestor with the chimpanzee lineage about 3 to 5 million years ago subtribe). Chimpanzees are the only known members of the Panina subtribe. The two Pan species split only about one million years ago.
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Evolutionary history
Evolutionary relationship
Further information: History of hominoid taxonomy An ape is any member of the Hominoidea superfamily of primates, including humans. Due to its ambiguous nature, the term ape has been deemphasized in favor of Hominoidea as a means of describing taxonomic relationships The taxonomic relationships of HominoideaThe genus Pan is considered to be part of the subfamily Homininae Homininae is a subfamily of Hominidae, which includes humans, gorillas and chimpanzees, and some extinct human relatives; it comprises all those hominids, such as Australopithecus, that arose after the split from the other great apes to which humans Humans, known taxonomically as Homo sapiens , are the only living species in the Homo genus of bipedal primates in Hominidae, the great ape family. However, in some cases "human" is used to refer to any member of the genus Homo also belong. These two species are the closest living evolutionary Evolution is the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations. This change results from interactions between processes which introduce variation into a population, and other processes which remove it. As a result, variants with particular traits become more, or less, common. A trait is a particular relatives to humans Humans, known taxonomically as Homo sapiens , are the only living species in the Homo genus of bipedal primates in Hominidae, the great ape family. However, in some cases "human" is used to refer to any member of the genus Homo, sharing a common ancestor with humans six million years ago.[3] Research by Mary-Claire King Mary-Claire King is an American human geneticist. She is professor at the University of Washington, where she studies the genetics and interaction of genetics and environmental influences on human conditions such as HIV, lupus, inherited deafness, and also breast and ovarian cancer. King is known for three major accomplishments: identifying breast in 1973 found 99% identical DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid ( /diːˌɒksɨˌraɪbɵ.nuːˈkleɪ.ɪk ˈæsɪd/ (help·info)) (DNA) is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information. DNA is often compared to a set of between human beings and chimpanzees,[4] although research since has modified that finding to about 94%[5] commonality, with some of the difference occurring in non-coding DNA In genetics, non-coding DNA describes DNA which does not contain instructions for making proteins. In eukaryotes, a large percentage of many organisms' total genome sizes is noncoding DNA. Some noncoding DNA is involved in regulating the activity of coding regions. However, much of this DNA has no known function and is sometimes referred to as &. It has been proposed that troglodytes and paniscus belong with sapiens in the genus Homo Homo is the genus that includes modern humans and species closely related to them. The genus is estimated to be about 2.3 to 2.4 million years old, evolving from australopithecine ancestors with the appearance of Homo habilis. Specifically, H. habilis is assumed to be the direct descendant of Australopithecus garhi which lived about 2.5 million, rather than in Pan. One of the arguments 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.
Fossils
Many human fossils Human evolution, or anthropogenesis, is the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens as a distinct species from other hominids, great apes and placental mammals. The study of human evolution encompasses many scientific disciplines, including physical anthropology, primatology, archaeology, linguistics and genetics have been found, but chimpanzee fossils were not 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 The Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. Lying along the Indian Ocean to its southeast and at the equator, Kenya is bordered by Somalia to the northeast, Ethiopia to the north, Sudan to the northwest, Uganda to the west and Tanzania to the south. Lake Victoria is to the southwest and is shared between Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Kenya. This would indicate that both humans and members of the Pan clade A clade[note 1] is a group consisting of an organism and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological classification. In were present in the East African Rift Valley The East African Rift is an active continental rift zone in eastern Africa that appears to be a developing divergent tectonic plate boundary. It is part of the larger Great Rift Valley. The rift is a narrow zone in which the African Plate is in the process of splitting into two new tectonic plates called the Somali Plate and the Nubian Plate, during the Middle Pleistocene The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2.588 million to 12,000 years BP covering the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek πλεῖστος (pleistos "most") and καινός (kainos "new").[6]
Anatomy and physiology
The male common chimp is up to 1.7 metres (5.6 ft) high when standing, and weighs as much as 70 kilograms (150 lb); the female is somewhat smaller. The common chimp’s long arms, when extended, have a span one and a half times as long as the body’s height and a chimpanzee's arms are longer than its legs.[7] The bonobo is a little shorter and thinner than the common chimpanzee but has longer limbs. Both species use their long, powerful arms for climbing in trees. On the ground, chimpanzees usually walk on all fours using their knuckles for support with their hands clenched, a form of locomotion called knuckle-walking Knuckle-walking is a form of quadrupedal walking in which the forelimbs hold the fingers in a partially flexed posture that allows body weight to press down on the ground through the knuckles. Chimpanzee feet are better suited for walking than are those of the orangutan because the chimp’s soles are broader and the toes shorter. Both the common chimpanzee and bonobo can walk upright on two legs when carrying objects with their hands and arms. The coat is dark; the face, fingers, palms of the hands, and soles of the feet are hairless; and the chimp has no tail. A bony shelf over the eyes gives the forehead a receding appearance, and the nose is flat. Although the jaws protrude, the lips are thrust out only when a chimp pouts. The brain of a chimpanzee is about half the size of the human brain.[8]
Chimpanzee testicles are unusually large for their body size, with a combined weight of about 4 ounces (110 g) compared to a gorilla's 1 ounce (28 g) or a human's 1.5 ounces (43 g). This is generally attributed to sperm competition due to the polyandrous Polyandry refers to a form of marriage in which a woman has two or more husbands at the same time. The form of polyandry in which a woman is married to two or more brothers is known as "fraternal polyandry", and it is believed by many anthropologists to be the most frequently encountered form nature of chimpanzee mating behavior.[9]
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. The Bonobo has proportionately longer upper limbs and tends to walk upright more often than the Common Chimpanzee. A University of Chicago Medical Centre study has found significant genetic differences between chimpanzee populations.[10]
Chimpanzees reach puberty at an age of between 8 and 10 years and rarely live past the age of 40 in the wild, but have been known to reach the age of more than 60 in captivity.
Behaviors
BonoboAnatomical differences between the Common Chimpanzee and the Bonobo are slight, but in sexual and social behaviour there are marked differences. The Common Chimpanzee has an omnivorous Omnivores are species that eat both plants and animals as their primary food source. They are opportunistic, general feeders not specifically adapted to eat and digest either meat or plant material primarily. Pigs are one well-known example of an omnivore. Crows are another example of an omnivore that many people see every day. Humans are regarded diet In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. Dietary habits are the habitual decisions an individual or culture makes when choosing what foods to eat. With the word diet, it is often implied the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management reasons . Although humans are omnivores, each culture, a troop hunting In ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey (the organism that is attacked). Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of its prey and the eventual absorption of the prey's tissue through consumption. The other main culture based on beta males led by an alpha male In social animals, the alpha is the individual in the community with the highest rank. Where one male and one female fulfill this role, they are referred to as the alpha pair . Other animals in the same social group may exhibit deference or other symbolic signs of respect particular to their species towards the alpha, and highly complex social relationships.
The Bonobo, on the other hand, has a mostly frugivorous A frugivore is a fruit eater. It can be any type of herbivore or omnivore where fruit is a preferred food type. Because approximately 20% of all mammalian herbivores also eat fruit, frugivory is considered to be common among mammals. Since frugivores eat a lot of fruit they are highly dependent on the abundance and nutritional composition of diet and an egalitarian Egalitarianism , is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort. Its general premise is that people should be treated as equals on certain dimensions such as religiously, politically, economically, socially, or culturally. Egalitarian doctrines maintain that all human persons are equal in fundamental worth or moral status. In large part,, nonviolent Nonviolence is a philosophy and strategy for social change that rejects the use of violence. Thus, nonviolence is an alternative to passive acceptance of oppression or of armed struggle against it. Nonviolence practitioners use diverse methods in their campaigns for social change, including critical forms of education and persuasion, civil, matriarchal Matriarchy refers to a gynecocentric form of society, in which the leading role is taken by the women and especially by the mothers of a community, sexually receptive behaviour.[11] Bonobos are well known to have frequent sex, with bisexuality the norm for both males and females, and also to use sex to help prevent and resolve conflicts. Different groups of chimpanzees also have different cultural behaviour with preferences for types of tools.[12]
The Common Chimpanzee tends to display higher levels of aggression than the Bonobo.[13]
Social Structure
Chimpanzees live in large multi-male and multi-female social groups called communities. Within a community there is a definite social hierarchy which is dictated by the position of an individual and the influence the individual has on others. Chimpanzees live in a leaner hierarchy in which more than one individual may be dominant enough to dominate other members of lower rank. Typically there is a dominant male referred to as the Alpha male. Alpha male is the highest ranking male who controls the group and maintains order during any disputes. In chimpanzee society the 'dominant male' does not always have to be the largest or strongest male but rather the most manipulative and political male who can influence the goings on within a group. Male chimpanzees typically attain dominance through cultivating allies who will provide support for that individual in case of future ambitions for power. Its within a male chimpanzee's character to display in an attempt to show strength and recognition from others which may be fundamental to holding on to status. The alpha male will regularly display by making their normally slim coats puffed up to increase view size and charge to look as threatening and as powerful as possible to intimidate other members in an attempt to hold on to power and maintain authority. Lower ranking chimpanzees will show respect by making submissive gestures in body language or reaching out their hand while grunting. Female chimpanzees will show deference to the alpha male by presenting their hind-quarters.
Female chimpanzees also have a hierarchy which is influenced by the position of a female individual within a group. In some chimpanzee communities, the young females may inherit high status from a high ranking mother. The females will also form allies to dominate lower ranking females. In contrast to males who have a main purpose of acquiring dominant status for access to mating privileges and sometimes violent domination of subordinates, females acquire dominant status for access to resources such as food. High ranking females will often get first access to resources than lower ranking females. In general, both genders acquire dominant status to improve social standing within a group.
Its often the females who choose the alpha male. For a male chimpanzee to win the alpha status he must gain acceptance from the females in the community as they are the ones who actually dictate the way the lifestyles are set up(the females are the ones who ensure the survival of the next generation. They have to make sure that their group is going to places that supply them with enough food). There are cases where a group of dominant females will oust an alpha male who is not to their preference and rather back up the other male who they see potential of leading the group as a successful alpha male.
Mon, 12 Jul 2010 12:03:46 GMT+00:00
Daily Caller After Paul's World Cup success, an Estonian Zoo asked a chimpanzee named Pino to pick between two paper bags containing snacks, each with either a Spanish ...
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You can now view each page by simply clicking on the pictures It s a fast easy way to browse thru ALL of the Furry Animal Pages New Page Snapshots Here you can see Pictures from Happy Customers
Sun, 13 Sep 2009 06:09:11 PDT
The cannibalism of the chimpanzee. youtube.com.
