Powersuit Monkey: A monkey or ape with a human job, usually as a comedy gag. Working in context, it makes good scientific sense to conclude that Tarzan felt grief for his sister, that Brutus was able to recognize Tarzan's bond of affection with Tina and that Brutus chose to act upon that knowledge by compassionately allowing Tarzan to do what other youngsters could not. Nue: A chimeric yokai that is stated to have the head of a monkey, the body of a tanuki, the limbs of a tiger, and the tail of a snake. We know, thanks to decades of field research uncovering aspects of chimpanzees' minds and emotions, that careful anthropomorphism is appropriate here. When youngsters approached, he shooed them away, with a single exception - Tina's younger brother Tarzan, who came near, pulled on his big sister's hand many times, and gazed at her body. Brutus, the community's alpha male, sat with Tina for nearly five hours. Twelve of Tina's companions sat silently around her body, sometimes touching it gently. It stars the chimpanzee Brutus at Tai National Park in the Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa.Ī young female chimpanzee, Tina, was killed by a leopard. chimpanzee, ( Pan troglodytes ), species of ape that, along with the bonobo, is most closely related to humans. (Cats, dogs, and other creatures matter too I'll expand my scope at a later date.) I often recount the following event noted by the biologists Christophe Boesch and Hedwige Boesch-Achermann. Real, breathing apes offer a good starting place for thinking about anthropomorphism. It's one thing for Hollywood to dazzle audiences with anthropomorphic screen apes, but when we apply human terms to real-life animals do we wrongly superimpose our experiences onto theirs? "He understands," you may conclude.īut is it valid to label animals' emotions and actions in this way? Your dog nuzzles your hand and looks into your eyes. Or, after a tough day at work, you slump on the couch. The other glares at me, and acts aloof for the next hour. One jumps in my lap, and purrs as I stroke and whisper endearments to her. Let's say I'm in a room with two of my cats. What made ROTPOTA work as a film is our collective willingness - at least while watching it - to embrace anthropomorphism.ĭefined as the attribution of human qualities or abilities to non-human animals, anthropomorphism is familiar to most anyone who lives with animals. Marvelously, no living primates were forced to work on the set CGI apes were used instead. Two aspects of the film caught my attention. Nevertheless, Caesar learns human speech, and has the temerity to use it. "Careful, human no like smart ape," he's told by the orangutan Maurice. In the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes, alpha-male chimpanzee Caesar leads a band of apes against humans in a bid to escape the grip of their tyranny.īefore he is a battle-hardened rebel leader, however, we get to see Caesar as he grows up, transforming from playful primate child in a human household to confused adolescent to powerful adult. Among them is sitting in a dark theatre, watching apes clamber across San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. Suffused already with a seasonal nostalgia, I'm replaying scenes of summer in my head. For example, comparing the 33 percent of our genome that codes for proteins with our relatives' genomes reveals that although the sum total of our genetic differences is small, the individual differences pervade the genome, affecting each of our chromosomes in numerous ways.Caesar (Andy Serkis) leads his army of apes in a revolt against the humans, who imprison his kind for use in drug experiments.Īutumn begins tomorrow. The recent sequencing of the gorilla, chimpanzee and bonobo genomes confirms that supposition and provides a clearer view of how we are connected: chimps and bonobos in particular take pride of. 4 5 The two species were formerly collectively called 'chimpanzees' or 'chimps' if bonobos were recognized as a separate group at all, they were referred to as 'pygmy chimpanzees'. But they can conduct whole-genome analyses-with intriguing results. Taxonomically, these two ape species are collectively termed panins. Scientists do not yet know how most of the DNA that is uniquely ours affects gene function. Yet that tiny portion of unshared DNA makes a world of difference: it gives us, for instance, our bipedal stance and the ability to plan missions to Mars. The recent sequencing of the gorilla, chimpanzee and bonobo genomes confirms that supposition and provides a clearer view of how we are connected: chimps and bonobos in particular take pride of place as our nearest living relatives, sharing approximately 99 percent of our DNA, with gorillas trailing at 98 percent. In 1871 Charles Darwin surmised that humans were evolutionarily closer to the African apes than to any other species alive.
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