Why are we so similar
Chimpanzees are one of five great ape species. In addition to the human (Homo sapiens), the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), the gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), the bonobo (Pan paniscus) and the orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), all belong to the great ape family.
Chimpanzees are our closest relatives; indeed only 1.6% of our genetic material - or DNA - differs from the DNA of our chimpanzee cousins. Five million years ago, the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees lived and died somewhere in Africa, and thus we share a common inheritance with the chimpanzee.
How they live
Chimpanzees live in large communities in the tropical forests of Africa. The communities consist of several adult males and females with their offspring. The total number of members can vary between communities from 12 to 150. Males stay for their whole lives in the same community, while females move to neighbouring communities after they become adults.The members of a community do not stay together for the whole day. After they wake up in the morning, chimpanzees split into small groups, called parties, which search for food separately. These parties sometimes meet during the day, mix, and separate into new parties. The males normally maintain contact among the parties by drumming on the buttress roots of certain trees; large roots that grow out of the trunk forming triangular supports for the tree. This drumming can be heard for about a kilometer. That way everybody in the forest knows where the males are and the community can meet in the evening to build their sleeping nests together.
Copyright Liran Samuni/Taï Chimpanzee Project
What do chimpanzees eat?
Like humans, chimpanzees are omnivores. That means they eat all sorts of vegetarian food as well as animals. The list of food items is long: fruits, nuts, leaves, plants, mushrooms, flowers, insects, meat and more.
How do chimpanzees grow up?
Chimpanzee mothers usually give birth to one baby at a time. When a mother with a new-born baby meets the other community members for the first time, everybody is very excited to meet the new member. The baby is carried backside down by the mother under her belly for the first month so that the baby can be breast-fed easily. After 6 to 12 months the baby starts to explore its neighbourhood more and more. The baby makes contact with play partners, but the mother always stays very close to her baby.
After one year, the little child is carried on the mother's back, but it will take four more years before the child is weaned by its mother. Mothers wean their children when they get pregnant again (after about five years).
The child has to learn a lot of difficult and important things: e.g. which fruits it can eat, how to understand the other chimpanzees, how to make and use tools, and much more. The learning process is hard and long. Some abilities the children have to learn over many years.
CHIMPANZEES are in danger!
There are around 18,000–65,000 critically endangered western chimpanzees left in the wild!
There are three major threats facing wild chimpanzees:
-
The loss of their forest habitat - humans are burning, logging and mining in these forests.
-
Their vulnerability to human diseases.
-
They are hunted for their meat and infants are taken from their mothers to sell in the pet trade.
