I focused my dissertation on how the Gombe chimpanzees develop tool-use skills. I went from studying the weirdest primate to studying the primate that’s most like us. I didn’t think I’d wind up in Minnesota because I hate the cold - I mean, I really hate it - but it was too good of an opportunity. I applied to several different programs and I got accepted by the Jane Goodall Institute’s Center for Primate Studies at the University of Minnesota. I knew that I wanted to study smart, social animals - whales, dolphins, elephants or primates. It was pretty clear at that point that I wasn’t going to be a lawyer. My mother was with me and said, “I’ve never seen you speechless.” I was overwhelmed in the presence of someone I really admired. While she signed my copy I just stood there grinning like an idiot. When I was a senior, I stood in line to meet Jane Goodall to get one of her books signed. But I did much better in my field biology, animal behavior and ecology courses. I was hesitant because I actually failed my first biology test, which was all memorization. We were studying how they acquired these skills, how much of it is innate and how much is learned behavior.Įventually, that same professor convinced me to add a second major in biology. It taps on trees and then pokes the finger inside to get at grubs to eat. It uses the finger as a percussive foraging device and fishing wand. The aye-aye has ever-growing rodent teeth and this long middle finger. I loved it! I mean, who doesn’t love watching animals? Instead, I sit down and this creepy crawler comes out of the eerie red gloom and starts sniffing me. You can learn to "speak" chimpanzee in this video.I assumed there would be an observation room and the aye-aye would be behind glass. They show affection for one another by embracing, touching hands, and even kissing. Chimpanzees communicate using gestures, facial expressions, and vocalizations.Read our Blog series on how we facilitate building these families. Chimpanzees live in fission-fusion societies - large communities of up to a few hundred chimpanzees, with smaller subgroups that break off from the community temporarily.Watch how the chimps build nests in sanctuary. At night, chimpanzees build sleeping nests in trees using carefully-selected branches and leaves.Chimpanzees have also been observed using stones to crack open nuts and using sticks to extract honey from bee hives. Jane Goodall discovered tool use by wild chimpanzees in 1960 when she observed a chimpanzee using blades of grass to extract termites from a termite mound. Learn about the diet we provide in sanctuary. Some groups of chimpanzees hunt and eat colobus monkeys and other small mammals. They also eat leaves, nuts, seeds, birds’ eggs, and insects. Chimpanzees are frugivores, which means their main food staple is fruit.Baby chimpanzees can be identified by their small size and a tuft of white hair on their backside that disappears when they reach adolescence.Chimpanzees can live up to 45 years in the wild and up to 60 years in captivity.At one time, the majority of these chimpanzees lived in laboratories, but today there are more chimpanzees living in sanctuaries than any other captive setting! According to the Project ChimpCare census, there are approximately 2,000 chimpanzees in the United States.Scientists estimate there are between 170,000 and 300,000 chimpanzees currently living in the wild. Chimpanzees are endangered due to habitat loss and hunting.Their current range spans 21 African countries. Chimpanzees are endemic to the forests and savannahs of equatorial Africa.Chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than they are to gorillas! Chimpanzees and humans share approximately 95% of their DNA old studies reported a 98% match but a study in 2002 showed that a 5% divergence is more accurate.Chimpanzees are “great apes.” The other great apes are bonobos, gorillas, orangutans, and humans.
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