chimpanzee

Fortress of solitude

April 8, 2019 by Katelyn

We’ve been so busy in the chimp house today! Staff and some amazing volunteers raked out all the wood chips and straw in the greenhouse and replaced it with fresh shiny wood chips and straw! 🙂 What didn’t happen, was capturing any good photos. However, a few days ago I captured some photos of Jamie in one of her secret fort building modes and while they aren’t great quality, I do think they’re endearing. She’s always surprising us with her architectural feats and her desire to occasionally build “secret hideout” forts which are incredibly creative and amusing. Maybe she’s been feeling inspired by her Dwell magazines.

And once again we indulged her need to go incognito and pretended we couldn’t find her. I mean, we all need to hide out now and again. “Jamie?? Jamie? Where are you?”

A Show of Hands

April 5, 2019 by J.B.

I saw this illustration of primate hands shared on social media recently and thought it was a great example of how diverse the primate order is.

Almécija, Sergio & C Shwerwood, Chet. (2017). Hands, Brains, and Precision Grips: Origins of Tool Use Behaviors. 10.1016/B978-0-12-804042-3.00085-3.

The most unusual hand belongs to the aye-aye (Daubetonia). It taps its long, slender fingers on trees in search of food. After opening up a hollow with its rodent-like incisors, it uses its specialized middle digit to extract grubs. Think of them as the primate version of a woodpecker.

Some primates, like the slow loris (Nycticebus) and potto (Perodicticus), have evolved hands that allow for better arboreal grasping. Notice how the index fingers have become mostly vestigial and the thumb has rotated away from the other digits. This is part of a suite of adaptations that allow them to maintain a strong grip for long periods of time. It’s probably not a coincidence that they look more like birds’ feet.

In another example of form following function, the long digits of tarsiers (Tarsius) have rounded, frog-like pads, allowing them to cling and leap like…yes, frogs!

Many arboreal species, like orangutans (Pongo), have evolved small thumbs while others, like the spider monkey (Ateles), lack an external thumb entirely to aid in climbing. While it’s tempting to think of opposable thumbs as somehow better or more advanced (even the spider monkey’s genus name sounds judgmental – Ateles, meaning incomplete or imperfect, is a reference to their missing thumbs), this is simply not true. The ancestor to the spider monkey had opposable thumbs but in the course of adapting to their environment, spider monkeys got those lousy things out of the way so that they could grip and swing better. They are perfectly complete for the niche they inhabit.

Looking at a chimpanzee’s hand, you can see that they are far less specialized than those of many other primates, making them generally well-suited to both climbing and walking. While chimpanzees walk on the soles of their feet, they flex their hands and bear weight on the outside of the intermediate phalanges (the part of the finger between the second and third knuckle).

Thick pads develop on this part of the hand for protection.

Long palms and fingers and short thumbs aid in gripping large trunks and branches.

The trade-off, when compared to human hands, is less power and control in the precision grip.

The length of a chimpanzee’s hand and more limited rotation and flexion of the thumb prevent pad-to-pad gripping or pinching, but they are still able to grasp and manipulate objects between the thumb and fingers, allowing for the use of tools.

Happy Birthday, Joanna!

April 4, 2019 by Katelyn

We are so fortunate to have two sponsorships for a double day of sanctuary! Our first comes from Kathleen Kemper who sponsored today for Joanna Gabriel and shared this lovely message:

“April 4th is Joanna’s birthday. She has been in love with the Chimpanzees at the Northwest Sanctuary for several years, and is a devoted follower of the daily blogs. Joanna also contributes to the chimps’ enrichment whenever she can. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOANNA!”

Kathleen, thank you so much for celebrating Joanna by including the chimps in her day! We so appreciate you both!

Joanna, we hope you have the best birthday yet! Happiest of days from all of us here at CSNW! And how can you do anything but when looking at this guy:

Jody’s love of leisure

April 3, 2019 by Katelyn

Beautiful Jody has been in the spotlight on the blog quite often lately. But what a treat, as we often don’t get to capture her closeup on camera. Jody is someone who has always taken her leisure and comfort very seriously since living in her sanctuary home. She loves nests heaping full of soft blankets, the warmest of spots to rest and enjoy her meals, and as much as she loves her family, she truly enjoys her alone time as well. One example of this is that she truly gives zero cares as to if we need to enter a certain area of the chimp house to clean if she happens to be enjoying that area. As she should, of course, but you have to smile at her complete commitment to do whatever she feels like doing. She’s an inspiration! I mean, what a wonderful thing seeing her, or any of the chimpanzees, making choices and claiming agency over their home and how their day runs.

If you’re newer to the blog you may not have had a chance to read one of our posts that give more detail to our cleaning routine (which we do daily), but whenever possible we like to try to clean the chimp house beginning with the greenhouse (since this is the area the chimps access Young’s Hill through and once they hunker down in there in warm weather it’s a feat to get them out for the rest of the day!). Of course this time of year that routine commonly switches to cleaning the playroom first because the chimps are indeed enjoying warmer sunlit mornings in the greenhouse and are understandably reluctant to leave so we often serve breakfast there before they head outside.

After we’ve cleaned the playroom, the trick with a toasty greenhouse is getting everyone to accept the invitation to come in for a forage snack so we can THEN hopefully close off said greenhouse for cleaning. Today I was relieved to see that everyone was pretty happy to come inside for a popular food puzzle of raisin boards (small pieces of wood with holes drilled in them that we put raisins inside). But as soon as I’d closed off the greenhouse Foxie sat by the door and continued to peer through the window and she and I looked at each other and I knew. “Foxie, Jody’s still in the greenhouse isn’t she?!” Well, even though I knew she was out there, despite multiple trips out to look for her and repeatedly calling her, I couldn’t find her! I even stood at the fence to Young’s Hill thinking maybe she’d gone on an adventure, calling, “JO! Jooooooo!!” Nothing. Finally, after scaling the ladder to see if she was at the very top of the greenhouse with one last, “Joooo??”, up went one tiny heel of her foot in the air. There she was alright, with zero cares about leaving her toasty nest. Classic Jody. So as I wrote this we were plotting and planning how to get in there to clean at the end of the day while the chimps had dinner inside. And we wouldn’t have it any other way. Because truly, what a gift to be at their service, bend to their needs, go with their flow. What a gift to see their hearts happy.

Every Last Bit

April 2, 2019 by Elizabeth

Jody’s order of operations for orange eating: fruit first, then pith, then peel.

Morning people

April 1, 2019 by Katelyn

Mornings in the chimp house are a favorite time. The chimpanzees almost always wake up on the happy side of the nest, sleepy, yet playful, happy to see all their human friends and as excited for breakfast as if they’ve never had breakfast in their lives. Ever. It’s also usually the one time of day when those who are less inclined to spend their time engaging with us humans want to share a quick morning greeting before getting on with their day. I always have some grand plan to film them waking up or at least get photos, but that plan has yet to materialize.

When we arrive in the morning there is a least one person sitting in front room. The perfect place from which to monitor arrivals by the driveway and into the kitchen and they’re the first person we see as we enter the kitchen. It’s very often boss lady, Jamie, up and at it, ready for the day, naturally. But this morning she was nowhere to be seen, replaced by this fella (slightly blurry because he was stomping his foot and getting ready to sprint into the greenhouse with the expectation I’d chase him out there).

When I unlocked the door to the chimp area I spotted Jody, bedhead backlit in the window she nested by which overlooks the valley, fluffing up her blankets and not quite ready for the day to begin.

Then Foxie whizzed over, hair standing on end with excitement (pilo), her usual greeting of passing her doll to us and running off for a game of chase or a backflip or a pirouette or some other endearing Foxie-ism:

Low and behold, Jamie was sleeping in and I just spotted her raise her head from her nest, wearing a fabulous Olympic flags scarf tied with troll dolls that she had apparently chosen to sleep in. Jamie’s first order of business is usually to direct us to get a boot on tout de suite. But it always takes a few minutes during this process to determine what kind of mood she’s actually in. I think that’s true for most of us when we first wake up. 😉 So it’s always a delight (and yes, a bit of a relief) to see her joyful and silly as was indicated today, by her racing downstairs, climbing up on her barrel and kicking and flailing about:

With Burrito still running in and out playing chase, he was making the girls a little wary as they expected (understandably so) him to explode into his usual morning display at any moment. I found Jody and sweet, sleepy Annie, in the doorway to the greenhouse ready to make a quick getaway should he come flying their way:

This entire time, Negra was at the very top of the greenhouse with a purple blanket over her head, enjoying her usual slow morning until breakfast was ready. She pretty much sees zero reason she should get out of bed until you have a decent looking breakfast service in hand. Smart woman. That said, she always sends down soft hoots and a droopy lip to greet us.

Missy is another person who often likes to linger in bed a bit so she tends to stay up in the toasty loft until her best friend, Annie, rouses her from her nest when they engage in slow motion chase with the girls. But by breakfast Missy is raring to go and afterward is usually one of the first to race up Young’s Hill, ready to head off on her first adventure of the day:

While mornings are often a special time to spend with the chimps, the best thing is just seeing them wake up so full of joy. One of my most beloved memories was one summer morning when I was able to observe the chimps waking up and walking and swinging into the greenhouse. They didn’t know I was there and as I lay still on the outdoor observation deck, I watched each person sleepily following the other, yawning, rubbing their eyes, all the while engaging in half asleep games of chase and tickle, laughing with eyes still half in dream time. Seeing them wake up together so content and full of joy, excited to see what their day would bring, without being aware of the humans’ presence was one of the single most gratifying moments I’ve had. It confirmed what we all hope sanctuary means to them, what each of you provides for them. And that’s the best gift.

Sweet, sweet Jamie

March 31, 2019 by Kelsi

Sweet Jamie resting on the barrel you may say, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Jamie was so exhausted from her morning activities. You may be wondering what Jamie was up to. That is a great question! Jamie was in a great mood today and though you might be in a great mood, sometimes you still have to pelt poop to keep order. While the front rooms were being cleaned by our amazing volunteers, Jamie also made sure they stayed in line. After 15 minutes of on and off poop throwing at our kind and patient volunteers, Jamie was so tired. She found a comfortable spot on a barrel and stared at the new expansion through the caging. The chimps are so curious of the new area, they can’t get enough of it. Jamie and others often ask for games of chase from the new area to the playroom, meaning the caregiver runs from the Playroom, through the kitchen, down the hallway, into the new area, and than back! Of course not right then because she had already over exerted herself.

Jamie being irresistible on a barrel in the Playroom: