Quotes About Chimpanzees

And I thought how sad it was that, for all our sophisticated intellect, for all our noble aspirations, our aggressive behavior was not just similar in many ways to that of the chimpanzees – it was even worse. Worse because human beings have the potential to rise above their baser instincts, whereas chimpanzees probably do not.

The least I can do is speak out for the hundreds of chimpanzees who, right now, sit hunched, miserable and without hope, staring out with dead eyes from their metal prisons. They cannot speak for themselves.

But let us not forget that human love and compassion are equally deeply rooted in our primate heritage, and in this sphere too our sensibilities are of a higher order of magnitude than those of chimpanzees.

How healing it was to be back at Gombe again, and by myself with the chimpanzees and their forest. I had left the busy, materialistic world so full of greed and selfishness and, for a little while, could feel myself, as in the early days, a part of nature. I felt very much in tune with the chimpanzees, for I was spending time with them not to observe, but simple because I needed their company, undemanding and free of pity.

I well remember writing to Louis about my first observations, describing how David Graybeard not only used bits of straw to fish for termites but actually stripped leaves from a stem and thus made a tool. And I remember too receiving the now oft-quoted telegram he sent in response to my letter: Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as humans. There

The first time I saw adult chimpanzees in these five-by-five foot cages... tears began to trickle down under my mask, and [JoJo, a chimp,] just reached out this gentle finger and wiped them away... And then the veterinarian came. He knelt down beside me and put his arm around me. He said, I have to face this every day.

Chimpanzees have very strong preferences and aversions that are completely personality-linked. The people who are unsuccessful in working with chimpanzees are those who take this personally.

Her name...was Mrs. marina Orlova, and she had grown up in Siberia. Later, she would tell him that she loathed the American custom of constantly smiling: They are like chimpanzees, she said, in her bitter exclamatory voice. She grimaced, baring her teeth grotesquely. Eee! she said. I smile at you! Eee! It is repulsive.

Chimpanzees look nearly human. They share most of their DNA with us. But we do research on them. We experiment on them and because they're not quite human, that's all right.

In fact, humans have less variation genetically than chimpanzees.

I love chimpanzees. I love their stubbornness and their strength. I love the way they dig their fingers into life and never let it get the better of them. I love the tenderness beneath their wild tempers. I love them because they refuse to apologize for who they are.

When chimpanzees embark on a raid, their behavior resembles a monkey hunt. They're out for blood—but this time it's the blood of a member of their own species. Based on chimpanzees' alert, enthusiastic behavior, these raids are exciting events for them.… During these raids on other communities the attackers do as they do while hunting monkeys, except that the target "prey" is a member of their own species.

Raiding chimpanzees don't eat their quarry, but they attack it with utmost ferocity. It's not just killing—it's overkill. Wrangham and Peterson report that "their assaults Ã¢â'¬Â¦ are marked by a gratuitous cruelty—tearing off pieces of skin, for example, twisting limbs until they break, or drinking a victim's blood—reminiscent of acts that among humans are unspeakable crimes during peacetime and atrocities during war."6

Given the prevalence of snake fears among humans and our closest genetic relatives, chimpanzees, it is reasonable to believe that those who were indifferent to dangerous snakes were more likely to die and less likely to become our ancestors.

Of the more than 10 million animal species that exist, including roughly 5,000 mammals, only two species have been documented to show male-initiated coordinated coalitions that raid neighboring territories and lethally attack members of their own species: chimpanzees and humans.

In fact, Wilson and King showed that the difference in the average protein-coding gene sequences of chimps and modern humans was about 1 percent. In other words, the proteins that we use in our day-to-day biology are nearly identical to those that chimpanzees and bonobos use.

We've no use for intellectuals in this outfit. What we need is chimpanzees. Let me give you a word of advice: never say a word to us about being intelligent. We will think for you, my friend. Don't forget it.

A large brain-to-body size ratio is often considered a hallmark of intelligence, although it's not the only factor. But it is something we humans celebrate in ourselves and regard as key to the flowering of human intelligence. So it's easy to imagine scientists' eyebrows arching in surprise when dolphins—and not chimpanzees—were discovered in the 1950s and 1960s to have a brain nearly as large as our own on this scale.

man who has one pet monkey might be viewed as charmingly eccentric. But a man who has made his home into a monkey house, with scores of chattering chimpanzees capering through the rooms, will have lost credibility with the mental-health authorities.

Chimpanzees are endangered. Severely.

We've no use for intellectuals in this outfit. What we need is chimpanzees. Let me give you a word of advice: never say a word to us about being intelligent. We will think for you, my friend. Don't forget it.

In short, controlling more resources means you are likely to have more progeny surviving to future generations: Team aggression is one way that both chimpanzees and humans have hit upon to reap that evolutionary reward.

A few people -and a few chimpanzees- are just frankly antisocial. Presumably, such cases are the result of something going grievously wrong in a brain that has been built by a particular combination of genes and then submitted to a particular set of environmental pressures, so that it places almost everyone in an outgroup. When such individuals act alone, they are antisocial. But when they gain control over groups or even whole nations, they join the ranks of history's greatest villains.

Respect and loyalty go together and gang members, like the formal military, hoplites, Yanomamo warriors, and chimpanzees on patrol, will risk and give their lives for one another.