Animal Behavior 101

Maria J. Gaytan
Animal Behavior Project
Biology Period 1st/2nd
Due December 1, 2014
The Great Chimpanzees

Chimps also known as chimpanzees are the one of the closest living relatives to the humans. Chimpanzees and human beings are said to have an ancestor that lived about four to eight million years ago. Chimps are mammals, providing with an omnivore diet .In the wild their average lifespan is up to forty-five years in the wild. They are in size four to five point five and can possibly weight from seventy to one hundred and thirty lbs. Their group name is the community and they are sadly endangered. Chimpanzees are mammals that are used frequently in animal behavior experiments. One of the well knows experiment is the chimp cognitive. In a National Geographic article director Virginia Hughes said that “Chimpanzees and other great apes are known for their intelligence: They can learn words, play with objects, and even seem to mourn the deaths of their friends. But as a human, Cognitive abilities can vary from one animal to the next. There has been studies conducted on chimp cognition, researchers repot that those individuals differences are due in no small part to genetic makeup.
They are mammals who fit under the social group. They live in social communities of several dozen animals, and can habituate themselves to African rain forest, woodlands, and grasslands. Chimpanzees can walk on all four, but they can also walk upright and stand. They go from branch to branch, tree to tree, and here is where their efficiency skills come in and they do most of their eating while moving from different trees. Chimpanzees usually sleep in trees, employing nest of leaves. They usually eat fruit and plants, but they also consume insects, eggs, and meat, including carrion. They also have a varied strong diet that includes hundreds of known foods. These amazing animals are one of the few animal species that employ tools.
They use their intelligence to shape and use sticks to retrieve insects from their nest or dig grubs out of logs. They are so intelligent that they can use stones to smash open tasty nuts and employ leaves as the sponges so they can soak them up and use them to drink water. They are capable of getting taught to use some basic human sign language as well. The female chimpanzees can give birth to one single infant basically any time of the year. The infant clings to its mother’s fur and later rides on her back until the age of two. The females hit the reproductive system as early as the age of thirteen and the males don’t become to be considered adults until the age of sixteen.