Skip to content
Call Us: +256782105855 Email: info@gorillatrackings.com | sales@gorillatrackings.com
5 Fascinating Facts About The Common Chimpanzee

5 Fascinating Facts About the Common Chimpanzee

5 Fascinating Facts About the Common Chimpanzee

As the only great apes in Africa, chimpanzees and gorillas are the closest surviving relatives of humans. Of the two species—the bonobo, which is smaller, less violent, and forms female-dominated societies instead of male-dominated ones—the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) is the most well-known and widely distributed.

From their huge brains and sophisticated social intelligence and communication abilities to their capacity for tool use and fashion, chimps’ close kinship with humans is demonstrated in many facets of their behavior. They have also been used in a variety of ways, including as being used as subjects for scientific research or as entertainment in circuses.

The IUCN lists both chimpanzee species as endangered, and they are only found in the equatorial rainforests of Africa. From Senegal in the northwest to Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania in the southeast, common chimpanzees inhabit 20 nations north of the Congo River. Bonobos, on the other hand, only exist south of the river and are native to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 bonobos and 200,000 to 300,000 common chimpanzees left in the wild.5 Fascinating Facts About the Common Chimpanzee

The Common Chimpanzee: Facts

The chimpanzee genus Pan is categorized by taxonomists as belonging to the Hominini tribe, which also contains humans. It is estimated that between five and twelve million years ago, the chimpanzee and human linages split apart. According to the latest scientific studies, there is only a 1% to 1.2% difference in DNA between humans and chimps.

Chimpanzees use a wide range of tools, such as sticks of various lengths that they can use to both crush termite mounds and remove the termites; stones of various sizes that can be used as both a hammer and anvil to crack nuts; leaves that they can use as sponges or spoons to collect and drink water; and pointed sticks that are sharpened by the apes’ teeth and that they can use to spear bushbabies and squirrels from small tree holes.

The European Union outlawed the use of all great apes (chimps in practice) for experiments in 2010. However, it persisted in the United States, where over 900 chimpanzees were kept in laboratories at the time. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States came to the conclusion in 2015 that chimpanzee experiments were no longer necessary. Due to the challenges of finding new homes, a large number of chimps are still kept in warehouses today.

A ape named Washoe was taught American Sign Language (ASL) by researchers Allen and Beatrix Gardner for 51 months in the 1960s. Washoe picked up 151 signs during this time, and he taught other chimpanzees many of them on the spur of the moment. Washoe had mastered more than 800 signs by the time of her death.

According to research from Côte d’Ivoire’s Tai National Park, chimpanzees there engage in a type of prostitution where females use sex to purchase meat from males, frequently over an extended period of time.