Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
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I snapped a few photos of Foxie this morning as she strolled through Young’s Hill with Dora the Explorer on her back. In the wild, infants will cling to their mothers’ backs. Dora, on the other hand, is no help at all so it’s up to Foxie to keep her balanced up there.
As I was preparing to post these photos to Facebook, I noticed a few good ones that we had taken previously.
…is the friendship between these two chimpanzees. Both in their ’40s and showing no signs of slowing down.
Chimpanzees have rich imaginary lives. Chimps who use American Sign Language have been observed signing to inanimate objects and engaging them as if they were live social partners. For example, a chimpanzee named Dar was once seen signing “tickle” to a stuffed bear that he was playing with. I personally recall (and will never, ever forget) watching a chimpanzee named Moja don a curly blonde wig and look at herself in the mirror while signing “pretty” to her reflection.
Foxie was never taught sign language, but language isn’t a requirement for imaginary play.
Nor is imaginary play limited to chimpanzees raised in human environments. In the wild, young chimpanzees have been seen carrying sticks as rudimentary dolls and caring for them as if they were their own offspring. Are they simply expressing a desire to be more grown up? Could it be an instinctual form of practice to prepare them for motherhood? Whatever the motivation, it is probably not much different than our own.
What’s so interesting about Foxie is that the objects of her imaginary play are often not chimpanzee-like at all. Foxie is occasionally given chimpanzee dolls but she rejects them in favor of Troll dolls or Dora the Explorer dolls. And when she plays with Dora, she treats her more as a human than as a chimp. Note how she stands Dora bipedally (on two legs) instead of quadrupedally like a chimpanzee, even though Dora would stand upright just as well on all fours.
We can never truly know what a chimpanzee is thinking, but we certainly know that they are thinking. And imaginary play gives us a tantalizing peek into what those thoughts might be.
Despite Burrito’s best efforts, the girls still don’t treat him as the alpha of the group. I wonder why…
The chimps love these cool fall mornings. As soon as we’re done serving breakfast in the greenhouse, they pack up whatever they have left – in this case chow bags and pomegranate rinds – and head out to the hill take in the view.
The Tortoise and the Hare is a helpful allegory, but who wins in real life? The tortoise (Jamie) or the hare (Missy)?
You’ve got a chimpanzee lurking inside of you. This might come as a surprise, I know. But you might as well embrace it because whether you like it or not, your inner chimp will always find a way to reveal himself.
Under certain conditions, your sympathetic nervous system launches a cascade of seemingly useless hormonal and muscular reactions that betray your evolutionary history. Technically, it’s called piloerection, and if you read this blog regularly you likely know what this means. Others may know it as goosebumps.
Humans tend to get goosebumps under two conditions: when we are emotionally excited, most often due to fear or surprise, and when we are cold. Why does this happen? Our chimpanzee cousins have the answer.
Many animals have an automatic response to fear that involves making themselves look bigger than they really are – think about a dog raising her hackles, a cat arching her back, or a cobra unveiling its hood. Chimpanzees respond to danger similarly by unconsciously contracting tiny muscles around their hair follicles, thereby making their hand stand on end. Piloerection can turn a small, goofy chimpanzee like Burrito into a fearsome and formidable presence.
Piloerection, therefore, is the body’s way of protecting itself through intimidation. So what does it have to do with cold weather? In addition to making chimps appear larger, piloerection can also help to insulate them by trapping air between the hair and skin. It’s like changing out your sweater for a nice puffy parka.
In humans, piloerection is a vestigial trait. Since we split from our shared ancestor millions of years ago, we’ve lost much of our body hair but retained the biological response of raising what little hair we have left when our adrenaline gets pumping. But for chimpanzees, it remains a useful way to protect themselves from both cold temperatures and the dangers of physical conflict. So the next time you get goosebumps – whether it’s because you heard something go bump in the night or because you left your jacket at home – just think of it as your inner chimp trying to get out.
