I was commenting the other day about how many stories in the media about chimpanzees use some sort of monkey reference, often the term “monkeying around.”
This generally irritates primatologists, partly because it’s just silly and the stories themselves often are not, but mostly because chimpanzees are NOT monkeys. Chimpanzees are great apes like gorillas, orangutans, bonobos and humans. I might as well add that gibbons are called “lesser apes” and they are not monkeys either. There are a few distinct differences between apes and monkeys, the most notable physical difference is the tail – monkeys have them, apes do not.
When I was watching Foxie, Missy and Jody in the outdoor area today, though, I had to admit that “monkeying around” is pretty much exactly how I would describe what they were doing…
