Chimps have amazing lips. They’re called “prehensile” which means they actually can grab things with their lips. (That word might be familiar… you may have heard of some monkey species with prehensile tails, and they can grab things and hang from things with their tail).
Because of this super awesome trait, chimps use their lips for everything. Wouldn’t you? They turn pages of magazines with their lips, open packages, and Foxie even “vacuums” the floor with her lips when collecting a sunflower seed forage after playroom cleaning.
Their teeth are also very strong, and can bite things open like whole nut shells. Can you imagine breaking open a brazil nut with your teeth? It’s really impressive, but yet another reason they like to use their mouths to manipulate things.
Often times the chimps carry things in their mouths, such as toys, blankets, and of course food. I found these photos taken in the last couple weeks that demonstrate the variety of things we see the mouths of the chimps.
Foxie carrying one of her troll dolls in her mouth:
Jamie using her lips to tear some streamers down from Foxie’s recent birthday party:
Burrito especially has a tendency to manipulate things in his mouth. Here was his toy of choice a few days ago:
And of course, food is the most common thing the chimps manipulate with their mouths. Here’s Missy stripping some celery like it’s string cheese:
Missy likes to “de-string” her celery stocks. She will de-string the stalk and leave the strings for someone else to eat (Mr. B) it is fasinating to watch her do this.
Hi, I’m curious about where the chimps live. I know there’s Young’s Hill and the greenhouse, is the playroom a different room? Are they separated at night or do they sleep where they want? Thanks, I love these kids!
Larissa, great question. There’s Young’s Hill and then the indoor enclosures that together make up “the chimp house.” The greenhouse, (which was formerly their outdoor area before it was covered in greenhouse panels and Young’s Hill became their outdoor enclosure) and one big, 2-story playroom, as well as 4 interconnected front rooms. We should definitely do a “tour” type blog of the chimp house soon! Here’s one that has some insight into “behind the scenes” but it doesn’t really show the actual layout of the chimp house too well. I’ll keep that in the back of my mind and try and do something soon!
Thankyou! Looking forward to more behind the scenes stories and photos. I’m a serial unplugger of appliances myself. 😉 What a dream situation to be able to live onsite. There must be a waiting list of people wanting to volunteer.
Love those Chimp mouths! 😀
I have another question after reading the “behind the scenes” post. At night after the chimps have their night bags are they left totally alone for the night? I’ve wondered that about all Sanctuarys, what if a fire starts or something else unfortunate, is there anyone close by to protect the chimps?
At CSNW (as is the case with a lot of other sanctuaries) there is an on-site caregiver house. Diana and J.B. live at the sanctuary, so they’re around in case of emergency. In the case that they’re out-of-town, we have a remote alarm system for even something as small as a quick power outage (it also senses increase in heat in case of fire). We’re very willing to get a call at 3am because the power flickered out at the sanctuary! Oh, and we also unplug appliances and turn off the dryer at night to take just an extra precaution against accidental fires.
Thank you so much for the reply Debbie! It makes me feel a lot better knowing for sure even though I surmised there was some type of plan in place.
I just ran across this video from a few years ago of Jody demonstrating the awesomeness of prehensile lips: https://chimpsnw.org/2010/09/jody-and-her-sunflower/