Thursday Thirteen - Chimps

I won last week’s TT theme!! I was very surprised to discover that this morning! :) Thank you!

This week I’m thinking about Chimps, following on from my Wordless Wednesday yesterday of Susie the chimp and her family. I adopted Susie at Monkey World. I’ve been watching Monkey Life (five, UK, weekdays at 6:30pm) and I find it fascinating how similar chimps and other primates are to humans. So my Thursday Thirteen this week is all about chimps.

13 interesting things about Chimpanzees …

  1. Chimps live in large social groups with males, females, young and old
  2. Chimps communicate with eachother in many ways - by calling, by displays, by facial expressions
  3. Chimps show their love for eachother with hugs and kisses and enjoy tickling!
  4. Chimps groom eachother to cement bonds and show affection, as well as to calm nervous situations. They are incredibly gentle with eachother.
  5. Chimps have a long childhood like humans and stay with their mothers for many years
  6. Chimps learn from their mothers and other family members - if they are orphaned or taken from their families they miss out on alot of learning and can become disturbed, and don’t know how to act like a chimp.
  7. Young chimps are very much like human children - they enjoy playing together, they are curious, they learn from observation, and they need affection, reassurance and comfort
  8. Chimps can make and use tools, for example using twigs to poke into holes and get insects out, or using a stone to crack a nut.
  9. In the wild, chimps make a nest of leafy branches to sleep in each night.
  10. Chimps live for approximately 50 years
  11. Chimps can suffer with the same illnesses as humans - from minor colds through to cancer
  12. There are probably only 30,000 chimps left in the wild today
  13. Chimps can be mentally scarred by poor treatment :(

[The gorgeous photos of chimps in this post were taken by Steve Bloom and were found on his website here: http://www.stevebloom.com/]

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Published by Suzy on May 15th, 2008 tagged Thursday Thirteen, Chimps

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