In the wild, chimpanzees are more motivated to cooperate than bonobos

JUNE 24, 2020

by Max Planck Society

We humans have unique cooperative systems allowing us to cooperate in large numbers. Furthermore, we provide help to others, even outside the family unit. How we developed these cooperative abilities and helping behavior during our evolutionary past remains highly debated. According to one prominent theory, the interdependence hypothesis, the cognitive skills underlying unique human cooperative abilities evolved when several individuals needed to coordinate their actions to achieve a common goal, for example when hunting large prey or during conflict with other groups. This hypothesis also predicts that humans who rely more on each other to achieve such goals, will be more likely to provide help and support to one another in other situations.

"While we cannot study the behavior of our human ancestors," explains Roman Wittig, a senior author and head of the Taï Chimpanzee Project, "we can learn how relying on others may influence helping behavior in our ancestors by studying our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos." Chimpanzees are more territorial than bonobos and in some populations engage more frequently in group hunts. According to the interdependence hypothesis, chimpanzees should thus have evolved a higher tendency to cooperate and help others in the group.

To test this hypothesis, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Harvard University and Liverpool John Moores University, presented 82 chimpanzees and bonobos from five different communities with a model of a Gaboon viper, a deadly snake. During the experiment the apes could cooperate with each other by producing alarm calls to inform conspecifics about the snake. This represents the first experimental study ever conducted in wild bonobos. "This experimental study is a novel and promising approach to probe bonobo's mind," says Gottfried Hohmann, a senior author on the study and head of the LuiKotale bonobo project. Martin Surbeck, co-author on the paper adds: "This study should stimulate several more experimental studies on wild bonobo cooperation, cognition, and communication."

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Skopje zoo's chimp returns after recovering from depression

JULY 11, 2019

by Konstantin Testorides

Koko the chimpanzee, once a star in Skopje's zoo, has returned home after spending 10 years in the Netherlands recovering from depression, the zoo says.

Koko was reunited with his keeper, Dragan Trajkovski, on Thursday, who said he was overjoyed to see the chimp again.

"It was a joy I cannot describe," the 49-year-old told The Associated Press. "After 10 years, Koko recognized me. We touched each other, he turned his back for a little scratching and pursed his mouth in a chimp kiss."

Koko was born in the zoo of North Macedonia's capital Skopje in 1995. His mother died of tuberculosis two years later, and the young chimp began suffering from depression and loneliness. Trajkovski tried parenting him but for years his condition did not improve.

Eventually a Netherlands-based animal rescue group, Animal Advocacy and Protection, was contacted and Koko was transferred to their facilities in the Netherlands in 2009 to recover.

After 10 years at the AAP facility, Koko returned to Skopje along with three other chimpanzees who will be keeping him company: 57-year-old Mimmi, and Hiasl and Rosi, both 38. All three were treated by AAP after suffering years of mistreatment. Mimmi was once in a circus before ending up living in a drab enclosure in a garden center in Germany, AAP said.

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Nemley Junior: chimp rescued from traffickers dies

David Shukman Science editor

An orphaned baby chimpanzee whose plight moved people around the world has died.

Nemley junior had been seized by poachers in West Africa and offered for sale but was then rescued following a BBC News investigation.

Despite dedicated care in the past few weeks, he succumbed to a series of illnesses including malaria.

A leading vet who helped care for him said that, without his mother, Nemley suffered from a "failure to thrive".

In the wild, baby chimps usually live with their mothers for at least four to five years.

During his capture, Nemley would have witnessed the killing of his mother during a poaching raid that would have seen as many as 10 adults in his family shot. The two men who were found guilty of his trafficking were released from jail 10 days ago.

Sarah Crawford, an American NGO worker who had been caring for Nemley full-time for the past three weeks, said: ''He died in my arms. He did not die alone in a cage. He really fought to stay alive. He was taking fluids until 30 minutes before he died. I am still in shock. None of us can quite believe what has happened.''

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Chimpanzee seen smoking at North Korea's reopened zoo

Spectacle seemed to delight visitors but zoo has been criticised in the past for keeping animals in ‘woefully inadequate’ conditions

Staff and agencies

Wednesday 19 October 2016 16.00 BST Last modified on Wednesday 19 October 2016 17.34 BST 

Visitors to a newly reopened zoo in North Korea have been flocking to a new attraction: a smoking chimpanzee.

According to officials at the Central zoo in Pyongyang, which has been criticised for animal cruelty in the past, the 19-year-old female chimpanzee Azalea, Dallae in Korean, smokes a pack a day. 

The chimpanzee can use a lighter to light her own cigarettes, or spark up from a lit cigarette. The zoo has insisted, however, that she does not inhale.

The spectacle, which would shock animal rights campaigners, made visitors roar with laughter on Wednesday as the chimpanzee sat puffing away. Her trainer seemed to be encouraging the smoking and prompted her to touch her nose, bow thank you and do a simple dance.

The zoo is pulling in thousands of visitors a day to see attractions ranging from elephants, giraffes, penguins and monkeys to a hi-tech natural history museum.

NK News reported North Korea has stocked the zoo with animals from all over the world, with many of the deals being called into question by animal rights campaigners. The zoo has also been criticised in the past for keeping animals in “woefully inadequate” conditions.

Renovations at the zoo began in 2014 as part of efforts by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, to create leisure centres around the capital.

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The story of how a touch screen helped a paralyzed chimp walk again

Euthanasia does not have to be only option for injured animals

Date: July 5, 2016 

Source: Springer

The case of Reo, a male chimpanzee that learned to walk again after being paralyzed due to illness, shows how much can be done to rehabilitate animals injured in captivity. So says lead author Yoko Sakuraba of Kyoto University, in an article inPrimates, the official journal of the Japan Monkey Centre published by Springer.

In their normal work, researchers of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University use chimpanzees' interaction with computers and touch screens to study the cognition and perception of these primates. When Reo was paralyzed from the neck down, dedicated staff put this technology to further use by encouraging the animal to walk again. This is the first case in which a paralyzed chimpanzee has been rehabilitated through such a dedicated programme.

When Reo was 24 years old in 2006, he suddenly became paralyzed when a portion of his spinal cord became inflamed. For the first ten months thereafter, the chimpanzee was severely disabled, lying on his back. He gradually recovered enough to sit up, and could later pull himself upright by using suspended ropes. Intensive physiotherapy over a period of 41 months followed, after which he was able to climb about again using only his arms.

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World's loneliest chimp' hugs conservation worker after spending years in isolation

Ponso's mate and their young died in 2013, and he has been alone in an island off the Ivory Coast ever since

By Helena Horton

2:10PM GMT 18 Feb 2016

Ponso the chimp spent nearly three years in isolation on an island with no other chimpanzees after the death of his mate and their young in 2013.

For years, he only had occasional contact from a nearby villager named Germain, who visited sometimes to bring bananas and bread - the chimp's only source of food on the tiny island

He was cheered up this month when he made a new friend - Estelle Raballand.

Ms. Raballand is the Managing Director at the Centre de Conservation pour Chimpanzes.

When she met the primate, he responded by grinning from ear-to-ear and giving her a hug - evidently overjoyed at having someone new to spend time with.

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Wild chimpanzee observed caring for disabled infant in ‘first case of its kind’

Researchers have observed a chimpanzee looking after its ‘severely disabled’ daughter in Tanzania

By Mark Molloy

5:41PM GMT 12 Nov 2015

For the first time in the wild scientists claim to have observed a female chimpanzee caring for an infant with severe disabilities.

A team of researchers from Japan’s Kyoto University studied a mother providing care for her daughter living in the Mahale Mountains National Park in Tanzania over a two-year period.

The infant, known as XT11, was born at the park in 2011 and displayed symptoms resembling Down's syndrome seen in other chimps in captivity.

She lived for 23 months and researchers doubt she would have stayed alive for so long without the help and care of her mother and sister.

Michio Nakamura, an associate professor at the university, told the Japan Times: "She had a fish look and kept her mouth half-open, so we assumed she had some kind of mental handicap."

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Chimp 'Personhood' Advocates Seek New Appeal in NY

by Megan Gannon, News Editor | December 18, 2014 05:14pm ET

Animal-rights advocates seeking "personhood" for chimpanzees want to take their case to the highest court in New York State.

Since 2013, an organization called the Nonhuman Rights Project has been seeking a writ of habeas corpus to free a pet chimpanzee named Tommy from the cage in which he is housed in upstate New York.

A writ of habeas corpus is designed to prevent unreasonable detention — but so far, only for people. Lawyer Steven Wise and his colleagues at the Nonhuman Rights Project have been arguing in New York's courts that Tommy's living conditions are akin to those of a person living in unlawful solitary confinement. They want him moved to a sanctuary instead.

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US chimpanzee Tommy 'has no human rights' - court

A chimpanzee is not entitled to the same rights as people and does not have be freed from captivity by its owner, a US court has ruled.

The appeals court in New York state said caged chimpanzee Tommy could not be recognised as a "legal person" as it "cannot bear any legal duties".

The Nonhuman Rights Project had argued that chimps who had such similar characteristics to the humans deserved basic rights, including freedom.

The rights group said it would appeal.

Owner pleased

In its ruling, the judges wrote: "So far as legal theory is concerned, a person is any being whom the law regards as capable of rights and duties.

"Needless to say, unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their actions.''

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Court Could Decide If Chimpanzees Are Legal Persons

By Megan Gannon, News Editor | October 07, 2014 07:25am ET

The case of Tommy the pet chimpanzee goes back to court this week, and a group of judges could decide whether he should be recognized as a "person" under the law.

The organization advocating for Tommy will appeal a 2013 decision that denied the captive ape a writ of habeas corpus in New York. 

A writ of habeas corpus is intended to protect people from unlawful detention. Last December, the Nonhuman Rights Project asked the state Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Tommy, a caged chimpanzee in Gloversville, New York. Tommy, the organization argued, was being held against his will in solitary confinement and should be released into a sanctuary that closely mimics a natural environment.

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Connecticut chimp attack victim seeks right to sue state

By Richard WeizelMarch 21, 2014 6:09 PM

HARTFORD, Connecticut (Reuters) - A woman whose face and hands were ripped off by a friend's pet chimpanzee in 2009 came to the Connecticut State Capitol on Friday to ask permission to sue the state for $150 million in damages.

Charla Nash, who has undergone a face transplant and many other surgeries, including a failed double-hand transplant, spoke to the Connecticut General Assembly's Judiciary Committee, her head wrapped with protective white gauze.

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How Similar Are the Gestures of Apes and Human Infants? More Than You Might Suspect

June 6, 2013 — Psychologists who analyzed video footage of a female chimpanzee, a female bonobo and a female human infant in a study to compare different types of gestures at comparable stages of communicative development found remarkable similarities among the three species.

This is the first time such data have been used to compare the development of gestures across species. The chimpanzee and bonobo, formerly called the "pygmy chimpanzee," are the two species most closely related to humans in the evolutionary tree.

"The similarity in the form and function of the gestures in a human infant, a baby chimpanzee and a baby bonobo was remarkable," said Patricia Greenfield, a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at UCLA and co-author of the study, published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Psychology.

Gestures made by all three species included reaching, pointing with fingers or the head, and raising the arms to ask to be picked up. The researchers called "striking" the finding that the gestures of all three species were "predominantly communicative," Greenfield said.

To be classified as communicative, a gesture had to include eye contact with the conversational partner, be accompanied by vocalization (non-speech sounds) or include a visible behavioral effort to elicit a response. The same standard was used for all three species. For all three, gestures were usually accompanied by one or more behavioral signs of an intention to communicate.

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Chimp escapes Las Vegas backyard _ again

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A chimpanzee who rampaged through a Las Vegas neighborhood last month made a second escape from her backyard enclosure this weekend, but her caretaker thinks she had human help this time.

Timmi De Rosa says the 13-year-old chimp, CJ, didn't get loose Saturday by bending steel bars without help. She thinks someone let CJ out of her cage. De Rosa says the 180-pound animal was captured quickly and was never a threat to neighbors.

The chimp was turned over to an animal entertainer for safekeeping before going to a sanctuary in Oregon.

On July 12, CJ and her mate Buddy broke free and roamed the neighborhood, pounding on vehicles and climbing in an unoccupied car. An officer shot and killed Buddy when the animal frightened bystanders.

Buddy was the more aggressive male companion and "worked 24/7 trying to break out" of his yard-sized enclosure — he finally busted through a pair of double gates, De Rosa said.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector that visited the chimps' enclosure after the first escape cited a number of "noncompliance" issues, according to a July 17 report obtained by The Associated Press.

Inspectors said the joint between a block wall and a metal gate had been damaged, and that a secondary gate around the main enclosure wasn't locked at the time of the escape.

The chimps escaped just hours before a welder was scheduled to fix gate hinges, De Rosa said.

De Rosa said CJ was never motivated to break out of the enclosure, and she doesn't think she did it without help. She says she found several bars bent inward, opening an escape route.

De Rosa suspects foul play. However, her fiancé and the chimps' other caretaker, Lee Watkinson, said CJ was capable of bending and breaking steel bars if she wanted.

"You have no idea how strong a chimpanzee is," he said.

De Rosa and Watkinson are not the chimps' owners. They said they were caring for the chimps at the nearby home of the owner and planning a better life for them. The chimps were housed in a yard-sized enclosure in the neighbor's backyard in a residential neighborhood.

Read on:  http://news.yahoo.com/chimp-escapes-las-vegas-backyard-again-051400805.html?_esi=1

Cute kids, crazy chimps and a video camera

IT could be a scene straight out of Planet of the Apes.A chimpanzee, frustrated with the constant attention he gets at San Francisco Zoo, tries to hide himself in a hessian bag.

When he realises that it's not quite working as a way to escape, he turns his attention to the two small children banging on the glass - and charges straight at them, frightening the living daylights out of them and the person holding the camera.

It all goes on behind a glass wall, of course, but cute kids getting a fright - sounds familiar, right?

Earlier this year we saw a similar scene when a lion at Oregon Zoo wanted to make a meal of a toddler.

Video :  http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/the-other-side/cute-kids-crazy-chimps-and-a-tantrum-of-idol-proportions/story-e6frfhk6-1226366718706

Like Humans, Chimps Have Culture, Too

Like humans who might use a different slang term for "that's cool" or have distinct fashion sense, adjacent chimpanzee groups also show cultural differences, in this case, in their nut-cracking techniques, researchers have found.

"In humans, cultural differences are an essential part of what distinguishes neighboring groups that live in very similar environments," study researcher Lydia Luncz, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, said in a statement.

"For the first time, a very similar situation has been found in wild chimpanzees living in the Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire, demonstrating that they share with us the ability for fine-scale cultural differentiation."

The researchers studied 45 chimpanzees from three different groups for the 2008, 2009 and 2010 nut-cracking seasons, as they use tools to open coula nuts from a tropical African tree of the same name. The chimps use hard "nutcrackers," which they craft from materials they find in their environment, to break the skin of these nuts against tree root "anvils." The nuts are hard at the beginning of the season, becoming softer and easier to crack open over time.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/20213-chimp-nut-cracking-culture.html

Scientists Map Hotspots for Genetic Exchange in Chimpanzees

ScienceDaily (Mar. 15, 2012) — Scientists at the University of Oxford and the University of Chicago have constructed the world's first genetic map in chimpanzees of recombination -- the exchange of genetic material within a chromosome that makes us all unique. The study, published March 15 in ScienceExpress, shows surprising differences compared to how the process occurs in the human genome. 

Recombination is a biological process that shuffles parental DNA during the production of sperm and eggs. This fundamental process is shared by almost every form of life -- without shuffling, we would all be genetically identical. Natural selection operates on this diversity to drive the 'survival of the fittest', selecting advantageous genetic profiles.

The project to investigate how recombination has evolved in recent human and primate history was led by Professors Gil McVean, and Peter Donnelly from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, and Dr Molly Przeworski from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. To study this evolution, they sequenced the entire genomes of ten western chimpanzees and identified differences between their DNA sequences.

Read on:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120315145413.htm

Chimp Haven Gets an Upgrade

ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2012) — With its miles and miles of dense swamp forest, Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo has long been a wildlife haven. It's home to an unusual primate population: so-called "naïve" chimpanzees, who have so little exposure to humans that they investigate the conservationists who study them, instead of running away.

Chimpanzee. (Credit: © Kitch Bain / Fotolia)

These curious chimps got a recent boost when Congo formally expanded Nouabalé-Ndoki to protect them. Known as the Goualougo Triangle, the 100-plus square-mile forest and its unique great ape population was first reported in 1989 by WCS conservationists. .

The Republic of Congo committed to expanding the park and protecting the Goualougo in 2001. The protected area has grown from 1,492 square miles to 1,636 square miles, an increase of more than 8 percent. With the region's apes facing increasing pressure from hunting, habitat loss, and the potential outbreak of devastating diseases such as Ebola, the protection of this area will help guarantee their survival.

Read more:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120216134423.htm

Dogs Understand Us Better Than Chimps Do

Chimpanzees may be our closest living relatives, but they do not understand us as well as dogs do.

The study in the latest issue of PLoS ONE. found that chimpanzees could care less when people pointed to objects, but dogs paid attention and knew precisely what the person wanted.

"We think that we are looking at a special adaptation in dogs to be sensitive to human forms of communication," co-author Juliane Kaminski, a cognitive psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, told Discovery News. "There is multiple evidence suggesting that selection pressures during domestication have changed dogs such that they are perfectly adapted to their new niche, the human environment."

Dogs may even be born with this inherent gift, since 6-week-old puppies with no major training possess it.
For the study, Kaminski and her colleagues compared how well chimpanzees and dogs understood human pointing. The person pointed at a visible object out of reach of the human but within reach of the animal subject. If the chimp or dog retrieved the object, he or she would be rewarded with a tasty food treat. (Chimps received fruit juice or peanuts, while dogs got dry dog food.)

The chimps bombed, ignoring the human gestures, even though they were interested and motivated to get the food rewards. The dogs aced the test.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/18411-dogs-understand-humans-chimps.html

Cheetah, Tarzan's chimpanzee, dies

'Tarzan's chimpanzee' Cheetah dies aged 80 in Florida



A chimpanzee who apparently starred in Tarzan films in the 1930s has died at the age of 80, according to the sanctuary where he lived.


The Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor said he died on Saturday of kidney failure.

He had acted alongside Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan in Tarzan films from 1932-34, it claimed.

The animal loved fingerpainting and watching football, and was "soothed by Christian music".

Sanctuary spokeswoman Debbie Cobb told the Tampa Tribune that Cheetah came to live at Palm Harbor from Johnny Weissmuller's estate in about 1960.

"Cheetah" was in the Tarzan movies alongside Maureen O'Sullivan and Johnny Weissmuller, according to the sanctuary where he lived.

Chimpanzees in zoos typically live 35 to 45 years, she said.

It is not clear what lay behind Cheetah's longevity, or what evidence there is for it.

A sanctuary volunteer told the paper that fingerpainting was not Cheetah's only talent.

"When he didn't like somebody or something that was going on, he would pick up some poop and throw it at them," Ron Priest said. "He could get you at 30 feet [9m] with bars in between."

The Florida "Cheetah" is not the only chimpanzee who has been described as Tarzan's companion.

A chimp known as "Cheeta" who lives in California was for a long time claimed to be the chimp in the films, but, following research for a biography, that claim has been withdrawn.

It is possible that several different animals were used while filming the Tarzan movies.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16344309

First Guidelines for Lab Chimps Drawn Up

Guidelines now govern the use of our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, in federally funded U.S. research, and because of them, some biomedical studies are likely to come to an end.

In fact, nearly all research using chimpanzees to develop drugs or answer other questions with medical applications for humans should end, according to a committee charged with establishing the first set of criteria for research on chimpanzees. The committee released its report Thursday (Dec. 15).

Research into genetic or behavioral questions — such as looking for insight into human behavior by studying how chimpanzees help one another out, or searching for the genetic underpinnings of language — are acceptable, or could become so with only minor modifications, according the committee convened by the National Academy of Sciences.

These types of projects are typically less invasive than biomedical research, which could involve, for instance, infecting chimpanzees with a virus.

For example, in behavioral research, chimpanzees — which, like humans, are social — must live with others, and may not be anesthetized by being shot with a dart. However, chimpanzees can be trained to offer their arms to have blood drawn or accept anesthesia so they can be examined, according to the committee. [Chimps vs. Humans: How Different Are We?]

New principles
The criteria for both types of research are based upon three general guidelines: The knowledge gained by the research must be necessary to advance public health; the research cannot ethically be done on a human being, or is not possible on another animal or in something that is not a living organism; and the chimpanzees used in the research must be given appropriate places to live.

In practice, this means the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will not award any new grants for research until an assessment process is in place, and a project-by-project review will be conducted to determine if ongoing research fits the criteria, said NIH Director Francis Collins, who accepted the committee's recommendations.

"Chimpanzees are our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, providing exceptional insights into human biology, and the need for special consideration and respect," Collins said in a statement on Thursday.

He estimated that about 37 research projects might be affected, and that, of these, about half may not be continued.

These criteria will only apply to research projects that receive some kind of NIH support, including animals used by private groups but housed using federal money, according to committee member Warner Greene, a virologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

Read more here ...