-
Diet
Frugivory
Fruit, but also eats leaves, insects, and hunt smaller mammals (colobus monkeys)
-
Locomotion
- Arm-swinging in trees
- Knuckle-walking on the ground
- Occasional bipedalism
- ONLY CHIMPS AND GORILLAS ARE KNUCKLE-WALKERS
-
Morphology
- Arms longer than legs
- Broad thorax
- Mobile, flexible wrist
- "stiff back" (few lumbar vertebrae)
- no tail
- dental formula 2,1,2,3/2,1,2,3
- Y-5 cusp pattern on lower molars
-
Behavior: Tool use
- Termite "fishing" with a stick
- Cracking nuts with rocks
Created a spear like weapon to try to kill "bush baby"
-
Mating system
Multiple-male polygyny
Males remain in the troop in which they were born, whereas females emigrate from birth troop
Males are territorial and will attack males from other troops
-
Issues
Often used as a model for understanding earliest human ancestors
-
Do chimps have "culture"?
Evidence of culture is populational differences in tools & behavior & these differences seem to be unrelated to local ecological conditions
|
|