Our resident expert shares her thoughts on keeping primates as pets:
strength
Chimpanzee Strength
Chimpanzees are naturally incredibly strong. This physical strength, combined with their tendency towards sudden aggression that J.B. touched on in his blog post yesterday, cautions humans who work around chimpanzees to be very, very careful. This is why when you do a quick internet search on “chimpanzee muscle strength,” the resulting articles are often tied to a report on a human who was attacked by a chimpanzee.
The text of this article from 2012 after an attack is particularly helpful in providing information about why chimpanzees are so strong, explaining that the muscle fibers closest to the bones are much longer and more dense in chimpanzees than humans, presumably making those muscles much more powerful.
When the chimpanzees arrived at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest in 2008, their muscles were atrophied or had never fully developed from lack of use, but all of the chimpanzees were still stronger (in many ways) than any of us humans could ever hope to be.
I often wonder what it felt like to use those muscles exploring their new sanctuary home. To feel them engage while running and climbing and displaying, and then to feel their strength building over time.
It must have felt both strange and exhilarating.
Here’s a tribute to respecting chimpanzee strength with some muscle shots of each of the chimpanzees at the sanctuary:
Annie’s shoulders:
We got a clear view of Burrito’s chest muscles after he was shaved for his medical exam this past summer:
Even petite Foxie has incredible upper body strength:
Hanging like this doesn’t take much effort at all by Jamie:
Jody’s certainly not the most athletic chimpanzee, but, when motivated, she uses those muscles to get her where she wants to go:
Same with Negra – she doesn’t tend to exert any more energy than necessary, but she’s pretty buff even under her more “squishy” parts:
And then there’s Missy, who uses her muscles, particularly her strong legs, as often as she can:
Negra braves the heat
It’s difficult to catch Missy in an action shot because she moves so fast.
It’s even harder to catch Negra in an action shot because…well, she’s just not very active. But even temperatures in the high 90’s couldn’t stop Negra from parkouring her way through Young’s Hill, troll in hand, to grab some broccoli and cauliflower during today’s lunch forage.
Foxie has been holding on to a new troll with its purple hair still intact. She treasures these while they last (Jamie and Jody usually rip the hair out).
Speaking of hair, a lot of people have trouble telling Annie and Foxie apart, so here’s a good side-by-side shot to help you out. Annie looks like someone just rubbed a balloon on her head. Not unlike a troll doll, come to think of it.
And Burrito has been showing off a bit more of his physique, thanks to his recent exam. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t build muscle on a diet of fruits and vegetables. Your results may vary, however, unless you also stick to Burrito’s daily workout routine that includes leaping, swinging, and banging on everything in sight as you terrify everyone around you in a formidable dominance display and then running for your life as six angry girls chase after you.
Chimpanzee Strength
As a follow-up to the last post, I thought I’d share this article that I came across last spring regarding chimpanzee strength. Judging by your comments, you either think that Burrito is incredibly strong or that I am incredibly weak. I choose to believe the former.
Honestly, I can’t think of a human on this planet who could compete with a chimpanzee in terms of sheer strength. And yet, after all these years being around chimps, I’ve never really understood why this is. Sure, they are more muscular than most humans, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to explain such a dramatic difference in power.
There are two explanations that I’ve come across, and they both seem plausible (and they are not mutually exclusive). The first says that the chimpanzee’s greater strength is due to a difference in “musculoskeletal architecture”, meaning, basically, that their muscle fibers and the geometry of the attachments between muscle and bone are different than ours. Have you ever wondered how a 150-pound deer is able to gracefully leap over garden fences on those scrawny little legs? When you think about how powerful some animals can be with such small muscles, you start to realize that size isn’t everything. But the second explanation, available in detail from the link above, says that humans simply have more “cerebral inhibition” over muscle control. Basically, our brains limit the extent to which we can use our own muscles. Only once in a blue moon do we hear of someone using all of their available strength, and only in times of severe stress – for example, stories of mothers lifting cars when their children are trapped underneath (just an example, I don’t know if that’s actually ever happened!). Chimps, on the other hand, go full-bore all the time, making tog-o-war with their human caregivers a short-lived game.
Anyway, I’m in no position to evaluate either explanation, but its interesting to think about.
