Pan Troglodytes: The Common Chimpanzee

Pan Troglodytes, commonly referred to as the common chimpanzee, are a very unique set of species to exist. Similarly to humans, each chimp has a very distinctive facial structure that lets us distinguish them from each other. Each facial feature such as ears, cheek bone or even brow are never the same on any chimp. This feature is very useful for anthropologists as they are able to identify and name the chimps they study and do research upon. A chimps arms are quite long, which is why they are quite skilled climbers and they are able to do arm swings as a form of arboreal traveling, but although they have advantage with their long arms, they also have a drawback from these long arms which are that chimps legs are shorter. Due to the long arms

They have seemed to have developed something we know as culture. What is culture you may ask? Well, according to anthropologist Victoria Horner, culture is, “transmission of behavior by nongenetic means.” In my personal thought, they have definitely developed culture both in the wilderness and in captivity. It may seem unusual to say that there is a culture when it comes to captive chimps, but the evidence is shown in research. Let’s first discuss why they have culture when they are in the wild. We can tell that they acquire culture because all the chimps definitely have a method of learning things, such as the tool and manufacturing method. Both can be said in captivity and in the wild as it has been documented that a chimp in captivity is just a capable as a chimp in the wild when it comes to social learning. But one thing that splits the captivity culture and wild culture is their mental being. Chimps that are raised in captivity have a lower possibility of being mentally healthy, why? Due to the amount of space and their small social life inside the zoos, they are unable to have the freedom and will that the wild chimps have. When comparing wild chimps, even though chimps align themselves with certain groups in the wilderness, what is most likely going to happen is that they will be able to properly socialize with other groups and are more likely to be mentally healthy because of this. Like mentioned in the previous paragraph, the captive chimp ate its own feces as well as drunk its own urine, something that a chimpanzee that was not raised in captivity would not