Chimpanzee
The London Magazine published the first recorded use of the name chimpanzee in September 1738. A creature described as a mockman arrived from Guinea and was brought to England aboard the ship Speaker. Nicolaes Tulp, a Dutch anatomist, applied the name to an animal brought from Angola in 1641. Peter Camper dissected specimens from Central Africa and Southeast Asia during the 1770s. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach classified the species as Simia troglodytes by 1775. Lorenz Oken coined the genus Pan in 1816. The bonobo became recognized as distinct from the common chimpanzee by 1933. Fossil evidence for Pan did not appear until 2005 despite numerous Homo finds. Studies published in 2017 indicate that bonobos and chimpanzees split from the human line approximately eight million years ago. Another genetic study suggests ancient gene flow occurred between 200,000 and 550,000 years ago.
Wild adult males weigh between thirty-five and sixty kilograms while females range from twenty-seven to fifty kilograms. Exceptional individuals may stand over one point five meters on two legs and weigh up to ninety kilograms in captivity. The arms of a chimpanzee are longer than its legs and can reach below the knees. Hands possess long fingers with short thumbs and flat fingernails. Feet feature an opposable big toe adapted for grasping. The pelvis is long with an extended ilium. A head displays a prominent brow ridge and prognathous face. Forward-facing eyes sit above a small nose and rounded non-lobed ears. Adult males bear sharp canine teeth. Muscle composition includes higher content of fast twitch fibers making them fifty percent stronger per weight than humans. Grip strength estimates reach three hundred pounds according to Japan's Asahiyama Zoo. Other sources claim figures as high as six hundred pounds.
A chimpanzee from the Kasakela community was the first nonhuman animal reported making a tool by modifying a twig to extract termites. Chimpanzees use modified short sticks to scoop honey if bees are stingless. Longer thinner sticks extract honey from dangerous African honeybee hives. West African chimpanzees sharpen sticks with teeth to spear Senegal bushbabies from tree holes. An eastern chimpanzee uses a modified branch to capture a squirrel. Chimpanzees living in Tanzania deliberately choose plants providing flexible tools for termite fishing. Stone tools have been used since at least four thousand three hundred years ago. Two young chimpanzees showed retention of mirror self-recognition after one year without access to mirrors. Ayumu performed better than human adults on tests flashing jumbled digits for less than quarter seconds. Chimpanzees crush insects and apply them to wounds or those of others. A thirty-year study at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute shows recognition of numbers one through nine. Great apes show laughter-like vocalizations generated by alternating inhalations and exhalations sounding like breathing.
A draft version of the chimpanzee genome published in 2005 encodes eighteen thousand seven hundred fifty-nine proteins. Human proteomes contain twenty thousand three hundred eighty-three proteins. DNA sequences differ by about thirty-five million single-nucleotide changes and five million insertion deletion events. Typical protein homologs differ in an average of only two amino acids. About thirty percent of all human proteins are identical in sequence to corresponding chimpanzee proteins. Humans possess twenty-three pairs of chromosomes while other great apes have twenty-four pairs. The FOXP2 gene differs from non-human primates by substitution of two amino acids. One change is a threonine to asparagine substitution at position three hundred three. Another is an asparagine to serine substitution at position three hundred twenty-five. Insertion of both human mutations into mice causes changes in vocalizations and behavioral shifts. Patterns of DNA methylation differ in the prefrontal cortex of humans versus chimpanzees. This difference implicates evolutionary divergence between the two species.
Ham became the first great ape in space when launched in the Mercury-Redstone 2 capsule on the 31st of January 1961. Enos flew on Mercury-Atlas 5 on November 29 of the same year. Hundreds of chimpanzees have been kept in laboratories for research including invasive procedures. Two federally funded American laboratories use chimpanzees: Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Southwest National Primate Center. Five hundred chimpanzees retired from laboratory use live in sanctuaries in the US or Canada. A five-year moratorium imposed by the US National Institutes of Health in 1996 has been extended annually since 2001. The NIH made the moratorium permanent in 2007. Only one European laboratory used chimpanzees until phasing out began in 2001. Chimpanzees including Ai have been studied at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute since 1978. Pascal Gagneux argues studies should follow ethical guidelines for human subjects unable to give consent. Stuart Zola disagrees stating chimps are not human despite their self-awareness. Retired lab chimpanzees exhibit forms of post-traumatic stress disorder according to recent studies.
The chimpanzee is listed on the IUCN Red List as an endangered species. Between seventeen thousand two hundred seventy and twenty-nine thousand nine hundred seventy individuals live in the wild. This represents a decrease from about one million chimpanzees in the early nineteen hundreds. Habitat destruction, poaching, and disease remain the biggest threats. Deforestation limits habitats in both West and Central Africa. Road building causes habitat degradation and fragmentation allowing poachers access. In Ivory Coast chimpanzees make up one to three percent of bushmeat sold in urban markets. They are taken illegally for the pet trade or hunted for medicinal purposes. Farmers sometimes kill chimpanzees threatening crops while others die unintentionally in snares. Infectious diseases cause main death rates due to similarity with humans. Kinshasa has the greatest genetic diversity of HIV-1 so far discovered suggesting longer presence there. Chimpanzees appear in Appendix I of CITES prohibiting commercial international trade. Selective logging may take place outside national parks even if deforestation rates remain low.
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Common questions
When was the name chimpanzee first recorded in print?
The London Magazine published the first recorded use of the name chimpanzee in September 1738. A creature described as a mockman arrived from Guinea and was brought to England aboard the ship Speaker.
How much do wild adult male and female chimpanzees weigh?
Wild adult males weigh between thirty-five and sixty kilograms while females range from twenty-seven to fifty kilograms. Exceptional individuals may stand over one point five meters on two legs and weigh up to ninety kilograms in captivity.
What is the social structure of chimpanzee communities?
Chimpanzees live in communities ranging from fifteen to more than one hundred fifty members. Individuals travel and forage in much smaller groups during the day with males remaining in their natal communities while females generally emigrate at adolescence.
Which chimpanzee was the first great ape sent into space?
Ham became the first great ape in space when launched in the Mercury-Redstone 2 capsule on the 31st of January 1961. Enos flew on Mercury-Atlas 5 on November 29 of the same year.
Why are chimpanzees listed as an endangered species today?
The chimpanzee is listed on the IUCN Red List as an endangered species due to habitat destruction, poaching, and disease. Between seventeen thousand two hundred seventy and twenty-nine thousand nine hundred seventy individuals live in the wild representing a decrease from about one million chimpanzees in the early nineteen hundreds.