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Ben Wareing Biology-1090 Reflection Paper Are there any other intelligent species? Bonobo apes Westerners saw few bonobos until the second half of the 20th century. Discovered in 1929, the forest where they range covers much less area than the chimpanzees’ forest and it was off the track frequented by early explorers/colonialists. They live south of the river, and thereby were separated from the ancestors of the common chimpanzee, which live north of the river. Bonobo’s are one of human’s closest relatives sharing 98% of our DNA. These great apes have displayed complex behavior with profound intelligence and sensitivity. Bonobos have opposable thumbs meaning that they can touch each of their fingers with their thumb. Bonobos are better suited to bipedal locomotion (walking on two feet) than other apes their anatomy is similar to Australopithecus, one of human’s ancestors. A typical female stand just over 3 feet tall and an average of 65-70 lbs males are in the range of standing 4 feet and 85-90 lbs. Bonobos observers have witnesses the apes create and use a variety of tools. Bonobo’s society is considered peaceful, promoting bonding, reduced tension and shared pleasure is used to describe daily life. They are the most vocal of all the great apes using complex patterns of vocalization to communicate detailed and complex information. They will often use hand gestures to accompany communication. With a few high pitched squeals and vocalizations they can communicate where the food is and how it tastes to all others within range. They are classified as endangered, there is no concrete data on population numbers, but the estimate is between 29,500 and 50,000 individuals. These apes are frugivores (fruit makes up half of their diet) but will also eat insects, worms, eggs, and even small mammals. They appear to have a female dominate society, meaning the female has a higher social rank than males. Typical communities of bonobos live in a population of roughly 100 that will split into small groups that search for food during the day and all return to the larger group to sleep at night, where every night they make a different “nest” in the trees by weaving vegetation in the canopy. Sexual activity plays a large role in their society, used for pleasure, social bonding and conflict resolution. They do not form permanent monogamous partnerships and have multipul sex partners with no regard to age or gender except that a mother will avoid her adult sons. Are bonobos closer to humans than chimpanzees? Not possible. The split between the two Pan species happened millions of years after man had already taken a separate path. It has been suggested though that bonobos might be the closest living model of the “missing link”. That missing link was a creature of 6 million years ago. CLASSIFICATION Apes are classified in the Linnean System as follows: Kingdom Animalia (all animals) Phylum Chordata Subphylum Vertebrata (animals with backbones) Class Mammalia (warm-blooded animals with fur and mammary glands) Order Primates (which is comprised of 11 families, including lemurs, monkeys, marmosets, lesser apes, great apes, and humans) Suborder Haplorrhini Superfamily Homonoidea o Family Hylobatidae (meaning "tree dweller" - the lesser apes, including gibbons and siamangs) Genus Hylobates (with 9 species of gibbons; since gibbons do not cross bodies of water, major rivers isolate each of the species.) o Species H. agilus - the agile gibbon (or dark-handed gibbon) Species H. concolor - the crested gibbon (or the black gibbon or the white-cheeked gibbon) Species H. hoolock - the Hoolock gibbon Species H. klossii - Kloss' gibbon (or Mentawai gibbon) Species H. lar - the white-handed gibbon or the common gibbon (consisting of three subspecies) Species H. moloch - the Javan gibbon (or silvery gibbon, or whitebrowed gibbon) Species H. muelleri - the Bornean gibbon Species H. pileatus - the pileated gibbon (or capped gibbon) Species H. syndactylus - the Siamang (the biggest gibbon, with dark fur, an inflatable throat sac, and a very loud call) Family Hominidae (the great apes, including gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans) Genus Pongo (orangutans) Species pygmaeus Subspecies (perhaps a subspecies) P. p. pygmaeus (with a round face and dark red hair; found in Borneo) Subspecies (perhaps a subspecies) P. p. abelii (with a narrow face and paler hair; found in Sumatra) Genus Gorilla (gorillas) Species gorilla Subspecies G. g. gorilla - the western lowland gorilla (found in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gabon, Congo, and Equatorial Guinea) Subspecies G. g. graueri - the eastern lowland gorilla (found in eastern Zaire) Subspecies G. g. beringei - the mountain gorilla (found in Zaire, Rwanda, and Uganda) Genus Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos) Species troglodytes - the Chimpanzee Subspecies P. t. verus - the western subspecies (found in Côte d'Ivoire, plus some small populations in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia). Subspecies P. t. troglodytes - the central subspecies (found mostly in Gabon, also from eastern Nigeria to the Ubanghi River and south to the Zaire River). Subspecies P. t. schweinfurthi - the eastern subspecies studied by Jane Goodall (found from southern Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania, and from there northwards to Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and southern Sudan). Species paniscus - the Bonobo or pygmy chimp, from Zaire, along the Zaire river. Genus Homo) sapiens (humans The earliest-known primates date from about 70 million years ago (Macdonald, 1985). The greater apes (family Pongidae, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans) split off from the lesser apes (family Hylobatidae, gibbons and siamangs) 20 million years ago. These apes cannot only understand language, but some of them can convey their thoughts and feelings to humans and to each other by pointing to any of hundreds of symbols on lexigram keyboards. Kanzi, an alpha male, who has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to communicate on our terms. Not only can these apes communicate, but they can tell us what they want, think and feel. The desire for a fruit or taste to one of the apes has led him to create a new word in our language. When tasting a strawberry for the first time, when asked what he thought of it he replied using the symbols banna-berry. These apes have recently been given I pads and seem to navigate them fairly well and rapidly becoming more and more diverse in their language and learning skills. Also they have adapted some of our human English words to their vocabulary amongst themselves, although it is high pitched and fast. Researchers recorded and then slowed, and toned down the play back and were amazed to hear English words that they understood. Given the evidence of the cognitive and problem solving abilities of these great apes in my opinion these apes are superior intelligence, how many animals do you know that can use an I pad? Sources: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/apes/Classification.shtml Pearson learning solutions-Biology 1090-copywright 2005-copywright 2010-Colleen Belk, Virgina Borden Maier. Salt Lake Community College, Custom Edition http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bonobos/