Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
10 am: Party in the greenhouse, featuring frozen banana in troll heads
10:45 am: Explore Young’s Hill
11:30 am: Build a nest in the playroom
12 pm: Lounge in the greenhouse with favorite dolls…
…and pal Jamie
1 pm: Lunch: cucumbers, snap peas, celery, and lemons
2:30 pm: Afternoon quiet time
Thanks again to Foxie’s friend Tracy Headley for sponsoring today, and to everyone sending happy wishes to the birthday girl. Foxie’s feeling the love.
Some of you may have seen this photo posted on our Facebook page yesterday, but if you missed it—here it is. Sure to make anyone smile!
I love chimpanzee feet.
These are Missy’s feet and they carried her through thirty years in lab cages. But that was then. Now Missy’s feet are for sprinting and leaping and tickling and sometimes holding surplus food at mealtime. I can’t wait to see what they do next.
Many of us are aware of how much we have in common with chimpanzees. But even as caregivers who get to spend our days with the chimpanzees, we often do a double take when we see them exhibiting behaviors or postures we see as particularly human. It has been a hot and easy going day at the sanctuary today and the chimpanzees have spent most of their time lounging in various positions in the greenhouse. Diana caught Annie looking as though she wished she had a pool to dip her toes into.
Apes (humans included) all have the same dentition pattern, which is a fancy way of saying we have the same number of teeth, and in the same order, across the board. We also have baby teeth, or “milk teeth,” that we loose when the adult teeth come in.
One difference between our dentition is that though non-human apes have canines in the same place as humans, their canines are much larger than ours. What we know about diet probably doesn’t explain why they would have almost carnivore-sized canines. All apes eat mostly fruit, leaves, and other plant items as well as the occasional small mammal meat in the case of chimps. Still, even that small amount of meat wouldn’t be the reason for why non-human apes have such large canines.
What other purpose can teeth serve if not to chew up food? Threat. Certainly large canines are quite intimidating, and can serve as a warning to enemies to stay back, or else you could get bit and boy—it’ll hurt!
In these photos you’ll see the large canines I’m referring to—the chimps are only yawning, but you can see just how intimidating their teeth can be. Just another reason why chimpanzees do not make good pets!
Foxie:
Negra:
Burrito:
Jamie:
Recently we posted about Burrito’s love of food. It is true that Burrito brings a certain enthusiasm to each meal but I would say that this is just as true of many of the activities that Burrito engages in. Burrito brings a level of energy and vivacity to play as much as, if not more so than, he does to the dinner table.
It was a quiet afternoon here at the sanctuary and a few caregivers spent quality time enriching the lives of the chimpanzees as creatively as they could manage. In this video you’ll see me playing with Burrito and may notice I have a fairly distinct tendency to employ “mirroring” behaviors. Mirroring, mimicking your social partner in language and behavior, often occurs subconsciously during interactions. The next time you’re interacting with someone see if you can catch yourself in a mirroring moment. I find it can be fascinating to observe! Also, it seems to work out pretty well when entertaining chimpanzee friends.
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of watching the chimpanzees eat. They chew as if no one is watching.
