Primer consejo del Lateran

The term chimpanzee indicates two species of monkeys today, kind of Primate S family members of the Hominidé S. These anthropoïde S of equatorial Africa is the animals closest to the human physically and Génétique lies.
Il exists two species of chimpanzees: the common chimpanzee ( Side troglodytes ) and the dwarf Chimpanzee or bonobo ( Side paniscus ). The geographical distribution of the common chimpanzee extends from the Sierra Leone and the Guinea to the lakes Tanganyika and Victoria. Recognized like species relatively recently, the dwarf Chimpanzé is only in the Eastern basin of the river Congo in Democratic republic of Congo.

The large naturalist Carl von Linné had named the chimpanzees Homo troglodytes : “cave man”. Since the name of kind was corrected, but not the name of species, under the terms of the principle of anteriority, although the chimpanzees are not troglodytes.

Description

The chimpanzee lives the forests and savannas of equatorial Africa. One often confuses it with the Gorille, whereas it is smaller. The male of the common chimpanzee reaches 1 to 1,7 meter in position upright and can weigh up to 70 kilograms; the female is a little smaller. The feet of this quadrumane are adapted better to walk than those of the orangs-outans: the plant of the feet is broader and the shorter toes. Its long arms once have a scale equal to and half the height of the body. Peeling is dark and the face, the palm of the hand and the plant of the feet are naked. Its skin is dew, black or mottled, according to the populations, with a great variability. The ears, the lips and the arcades sourcilières - know-orbital pads - are projecting and the tail is absent. The brain of the chimpanzee is about twice less bulky than that of the man (what does not mean anything in oneself, that of the human woman corresponds in general to two thirds of that of the man, without to imply a less intelligence!).

Longevity: 45 years.

Food

The chimpanzees are Diurne S and Omnivore S; they eat about two hundred kinds of sheets and fruits, the termites, the ants, honey, eggs of birds, the birds, small mammals and even of other smaller monkeys.

Social behavior

The chimpanzees form communities organized from two to eighty individuals on rather vast territories. They live and travel into small sub-groups and evolve/move as well with ground as in the trees. The adults build each evening new a Nid in a tree to sleep there. Inside a community, smaller sub-groups can be formed, be demolished and be reformed (Fission-fusion); the females tend to migrate towards another community to adolescence but the males never migrate.

The female can couple itself with various partners. The members of a band cooperate, in particular to drive out and share their food. The males of the sub-groups strike the trunks to communicate to long distance (tambourinages). These deaf noises get along with one kilometer and half at the maximum. There exists a constant interaction between the adults, and all the members of the group toilettent themselves mutually.

Communication and intelligence

Communication

To communicate between them, they ululent, grognent, howl or shout according to their mood. They seem to test much pleasure to hear the sounds which they emit. The chimpanzees also communicate by the expressions of the face, the Posture, the Toucher and the movements. A young chimpanzee can emit at least thirty-two different sounds and its mimicry can express a whole range of emotions.

The chimpanzees can learn how up to a certain point to use a language so men theirs teach in Laboratoire. For example, they are able to combine short arbitrary continuations of Symbole S by pointing them on a table to express relatively simple ideas. They can be trained to use some gestures Mot S of the Langue of the signs with a form of rudimentary Syntaxe, as it was the case with the female chimpanzee Washoe, famous to have thus learned how to control approximately 250 words that it partly transmitted to her Loulis child. Nevertheless, in their natural environment, the chimpanzees seem not to use a true language for to communicate.

Tools and weapons

These animals make watch of a real intelligence in the solution to problem and the use of simple tools, such as small branches which are used to them to extract the Termite S from their nest (technical known as of fishing to the termites ) or to make of it a probe being used to them to cross a river, behavior also observed at the Gorille S. the recent studies in Primatologie highlighted transmissions different of knowledge between groups of chimpanzees so much so that one starts to speak about Culture in what relates to them.

The chimpanzees would be also the first animals to be observed manufacturing Arme S. Indeed, in 2007, the Primatologue Jill Pruetz, University of Iowa, described 22 female observations of chimpanzees of the Senegal which worked out Lance S of wood that they would use to stab of the Galago S which take refuge in the empty tree trunks.

A team of archeologists directed by the Spaniard Julio Mercader, of the university of Calgary, in Canada, announced to have found in Ivory Coast of the stones that the chimpanzees used 4.300 years ago to open dry fruits. It is current nowadays to observe chimpanzees using a stone as a hammer.

Memory

A team of the university of Kyoto in Japan would have shown that they have a better short-term memory than the human being. The primatologist Tetsuro Matsuzawa advances that “ the chimpanzees are higher than the man in this field”. For him, the first men have “ lost the short-term memory and, in exchange, learned symbolization, and the language ”. It is what it calls the Théorie of the compensation: “ if you have a particular faculty, for example, a better short-term memory, then you must lose another of it. ”. Today, classified as species in danger by QUOTE, the common chimpanzee and, especially, the alive dwarf chimpanzee in natural environment are under the blow of various threats whose principal ones are the destruction of their ecosystem and the poaching for the Viande of bush and captures it (which often passes by the setting to died of the adults to recover the small ones intended to be resold like pet).

Chimpanzees and religious behaviors of the man According to a recent study of Albert Assaraf appeared on the site of Hominides.com under the title “Chimpanzee religiosus”, this author shows that in addition to extreme biological and mental proximity between the man and the chimpanzee, there would be a considerable proximity between our religious behaviors and certain behaviors of the chimpanzee.

Fascination for the top
Recourse to the mediation of a higher entity
Sacralization (avoidance of the glance and contact)
Recourse to the prayer to obtain a favor
Prostration
Gift-sacrifice and gift-potlatch
Theory of the remuneration based on the mini-program “obedience = reward, disobedience = punishment”
Interdict of the inceste
Reinforcement of a mental fence separating “us” and “them”…

Albert Assaraf shows that these universal ingredients which enter the composition of any religion are of nothing an exclusive characteristic the man, but who they exist in germ in the social life of the chimpanzee. In other words, that there is still continuity between our two species. As if a chimpanzee religiosus preceded already homo religiosus . -->

Protection

Like the other kinds of Primates anthropoïdes, the chimpanzees are threatened by the development of the human activities (deforestation, traffic, consumption), by diseases like the fever of Ebola. Everywhere in Africa the populations would be in regression:

Chimpanzees bonobos

10.000 to 20.000 as a democratic republic of Congo

common Chimpanzees

12.000 in West Africa
80.000 in central Africa
13.000 in East Africa

Since 2001, the chimpanzees are the subject of a program of protection (Grasp) within the framework of the PNUE (Programme of the United Nations for the environment).

References and notes

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