30 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Chimpanzee | Amazing Facts 4U
- Closely linked by DNA, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are one of the four species of great apes that are the closest living relatives of humans – the other two being gorillas and orangutans.
- Great apes are really different from monkeys.They are larger, walk upright for a longer period of time, don’t have tails and have much larger, more developed brains.
- Amazingly we, Homo sapiens, share 98.4% of our DNA with chimpanzees.
- Chimpanzees have the same bones and muscles as humans with differences only inform, such as longer arms than legs. Adapted for quadrupedal movement and movement through the trees, chimpanzees have powerful arms.
- Because of their dense bones and muscle tissue, the upper body strength of a mature chimpanzee is 8-10 times that than that of humans.
- An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 chimpanzees remain in the wild. They can be found in 20 African countries. Fifty years ago, there were probably a million chimpanzees living in Africa.
- Chimpanzees used to live in 25 countries throughout tropical Africa, in an area almost the size of the United States. Today, chimpanzees are extinct in five of those countries and endangered in five others.
- Chimpanzees are black, but older individuals may have a grey back. Both genders often have short white beards. The ears are prominent. Infants have a white tail tuft and pink to brown facial skin, which darkens by adulthood.
- 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. Chimpanzees can also stand and walk upright.
- Chimpanzees have been shown to have their own individual personalities. Chimpanzees behave in a way indicating that they feel empathy.
- Chimpanzees live in communities. These communities are composed of family groups totaling 15 to 120 animals. Hierarchies are formed by the adult males of the community, which is led by one alpha (the highest) male. They are highly territorial and will routinely patrol their home boundaries. Females tend to live a more solitary life than the males, often choosing to spend much of their time alone with their offspring.
- Chimpanzee infants are completely dependent on their mothers until about five years of age. When males are between the ages of 8-12 years, or adolescence, they will increase their independence and spend more time in the company of adult males.
- Females tend to remain close to their mothers during adolescence, becoming mature at age 11 but only beginning to breed at age 13-14.
- Chimpanzees can live for more than 50 years.
- In their natural habitats, chimpanzees are known to use plants with medicinal value to self-medicate themselves.
- The gestation period of chimpanzee is about 8.5 months, very similar to humans. A female chimp will not be fertile again until her child is fully weaned, so at most a female chimp will give birth every five years. On average females will have about three offspring during their lifetime.
- Chimpanzees travel mostly on the ground but will mostly feed in trees during the day and make a new nest every night in the forest canopy to sleep.
- Their diet varies seasonally consisting mainly of fruit, leaves, flowers, seeds and animal prey such as grubs, termites, ants, wasps, birds and mammals including bush-pigs, rodents and even other primates.
- In the Ivory Coast chimpanzees will hunt together cooperatively to catch red colobus monkeys, the meat is much prized and its subsequent sharing strengthens male alliances and familial bonds.
- Chimpanzees have opposable both thumbs and toes that allow for grasping, climbing, and object manipulation.
- Chimpanzees cannot swim, due to the structure and density of their bodies.
- Chimpanzees are very dexterous and are able to manipulate objects in their environment. It is one of the species that can make use of tools. Sticks are used for termite fishing and ant dipping, leaf sponges to soak up water, use sticks to probe or break open beehives for honey, and manufacture spears to kill small mammals and in West Africa, chimpanzees use specially chosen rocks to crack hard palm nuts, a behavior that can take many years to perfect. Baby female chimps were recently discovered to play with sticks like human children play with dolls.
- Chimpanzees, like humans, use facial expressions to convey emotions. Chimpanzees have emotions similar to those we call joy, anger, grief, sorrow, pleasure, boredom, and depression. They also comfort and reassure one another by kissing and embracing.
- Chimpanzees have 32 teeth and their body temperature is the same as humans, at 98.6 degrees. A chimpanzee’s senses of sight, taste, and hearing are similar to those of humans.
- While humans have blood types A, B, O, and AB, chimps have only A or O.
- Many older captive chimpanzees suffer from cardiac disease and take the same medications that humans take for heart conditions.
- Chimpanzees have many different vocalizations from soft grunts and lip smacks to alarm barks and screams.
- Some chimpanzees have learned to “talk” using American Sign Language, symbols, and computer graphics. Some have even combined signs to come up with new words. When the famous sign language chimpanzee, Washoe, first saw a swan, she called it a “water bird.”
- Grooming is also the single most important social activity and takes up a lot of each day’s rest periods. Grooming has a two-fold purpose: cleaning, and cementing the bonds of family and friendship. By running their fingers through each other’s hair, chimpanzees remove dirt, dead skin, and parasites. They will also clean any cuts or scrapes another chimp may have. Through these actions chimpanzees nourish friendships, comfort each other, and patch up disagreements.
- Chimpanzees are classified as endangered in the wild. Aside from habitat loss they are hunted for bushmeat and infants were taken for sale into the pet trade. Over 1000 chimpanzees are still being kept and used in biomedical labs for research.
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