Gibbon,
Siamang, Orangutan, Gorilla, Chimpanzee, Bonobo


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©1999-2005 William H. Calvin. 

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Last edited 2007-12-30 07:16

The great ape guessing game

You can (in the IE browser but not yet in Firefox) place your cursor over the portrait to pop up the hidden caption.
Clicking on a portrait will take you to a web page with many portraits of that species.

orangutan

chimpanzee

bonobos

Which ape is this? HINT: There are six apes.
Gibbon, Siamang, Orangutan,
Gorilla, Chimpanzee, and Bonobo
Homo sapiens
is the "seventh ape."
Students and teachers are welcome to borrow these low-resolution photos for non-commercial purposes.  There is no need to ask permission, just use  "Photo credit WilliamCalvin.com."   Right-click on an image and save it to disk.   Except as noted, all photographs are by William H. Calvin.
 gorilla

bonobos

Alberta, female gorilla
Makasi (16 month old male bonobo at San Diegop Zoo)

bonobo

chimpanzee
 
gorilla 

Kanzi, 25, male bonobo 

gorilla

Makasi (16 month old male bonobo) and Kesi (12 month old female bonobo)

Unkie, 22, male siamang at San Diego Zoo

female gibbon

Lana, 26, female bonobo vocalizing

 orangutan

Makasi (16 month old male bonobo at San Diego Zoo)

Nyota, 7, male bonobo

 Many of these portraits are in the new book. Browse it at amazon.com.

Hitam Lucu, 15-month-old siamang, and Satu, adult male orangutan

 

 

Books by
William H. Calvin

 


A Brief History
 of the Mind, 2004


A Brain for All Seasons
2002


Lingua ex Machina
2000

The Cerebral Code
1996

How Brains Think
1996

Conversations with
Neil's Brain
1994

 


 

 



 



THE EXECUTIVE STARE

Again, which species?

 

Pete, 37, silverback male in gorilla group 1, Seattle

     Alberta, female gorilla

Kanzi, 25, male bonobo at Great Ape Trust

female chimpanzee at Arnhem NL

gorilla
 

orangutan

gorilla
 

     
The Junior Executive practices her trademark stare. gorilla

gorilla


Off Duty Versions

Still the same young gorilla

 


 

     

The Play Face

The mouth is open but the lips relaxed or rounded inward to partly cover the teeth.  Eyes are wide open.  In apes, it is sometimes accompanied by a rhythmic vocalization resembling (but not identical to) human laughter.

Many mammals with a long juvenile period have a version of this facial expression.  It signals play rather than a serious intent to harm.

 

Hitam and Satu romping together

 

Not a play face but a grin.

LIFE JUST ISN'T FAIR...

 

 


Apes sometimes "share food" by allowing others to take a few leaves, while firmly holding on to the branch itself.gorilla

Possession seems to confer "ownership," which is generally respected.

San Diego Wild Animal Park
 


But sometimes they don't share (4 year old male stares hopefully at 570-pound grandfather).


Hope fades.


Dejection


Pout.

Giving up.    
 

 

 

 

INNATE MOVEMENT PATTERNS

 

 

THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL

Actually a female drummer.  Calaya, a 2.5 year old female gorilla in group 2, Seattle

This chest-thumping sequence is rapid, lasting only about one second.


 

OK, the guessing game is up.  You can (in the IE browser but not yet in Firefox) go back and move your cursor over the portrait to pop up the hidden caption.  Clicking on a portrait will take you to a web page with many portraits of that species.

I know of only one zoo where you can see all six of the ape species:  The Twycross Zoo north of London.  Here are my directions for how to visit as a day trip from London.

See many more portraits of all of the ape species:  Gibbon, Siamang, Orangutan, Gorilla, Chimpanzee, Bonobo

 

Books by
William H. Calvin 


A Brief History
 of the Mind, 2004


A Brain for All Seasons
2002


Lingua ex Machina
2000

The Cerebral Code
1996

How Brains Think
1996

Conversations with
Neil's Brain
1994

 


 

 



 



 

Visit
WilliamCalvin.com
 

William H. Calvin is a neurobiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle who wanders regularly into anthropology, evolution, and climate change.  He is the author of A Brain for All Seasons, winner of the Phi Beta Kappa 2002 Book Award for contributions to literature by scientists.

 

Most ape portraits that you see are skewed to the grotesque or scary, thanks to the proclivities of designers and photo editors (note, however, that whenever all the teeth are showing, the ape was likely yawning). 

The collection here tries to show a wide range of ape facial expressions and body postures.

 

Most of the ape portraits were taken at the San Diego Zoo, the San Diego Wild Animal Park, the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, and the Milwaukee Zoo. The chimps are at Burger's Zoo in Arnhem, Netherlands.  Several monkey portraits are from the Denver Zoo.

APES are not MONKEYS
Many people do not know the difference between a monkey and an ape. Apes are a branch of the Old World Monkeys that lost their tail, evolved very versatile shoulder joints, and doubled brain size.  Apes are "super monkeys" and humans are "super apes," having developed upright posture in the last 6 million years and then tripled brain size over that of the great apes starting about 2.5 million years ago.

The patas monkey is an Old World Monkey,
as is the colorful mandrill (right) and the
red-faced Japanese macaque  (grooming pair, right).

The default expression of each of these three monkey species is "expressive" in the manner of a painting, but it is not versatile in the manner of the great apes.

Even in the lesser apes, one seldom sees the postures and facial expressions, so reminiscent  of humans, that are frequent in the great apes (gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, and bonobos).

There used to be many species of apes, but most are now extinct. The remaining apes live quite close to the equator, in either Africa or southeast Asia and its offshore islands.  All are rapidly disappearing in the wild, endangered by timber cutting and hunting.  Viral disease has been quickly reducing ape populations in Central Africa.

Our closest relatives are the chimps and bonobos, with whom we shared a common ancestor about 6 million years ago.  (Gorilla 8, orangutan 12, lesser apes 18.)

Recent books by the photographer:


A Brief History
of the Mind
2004

A Brain for All Seasons
2002

Lingua ex Machina
2000

William H. Calvin is a neurobiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle who wanders regularly into anthropology, evolution, and climate change.  He won the Phi Beta Kappa 2002 Book Award for contributions to literature by a scientist.

See portraits of the ape species: 
Gibbon
, Siamang, Orangutan, Gorilla, Chimpanzee, Bonobo.
 

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Last edited 2007-12-30 07:16


Books by
William H. Calvin



A Brief History
 of the Mind, 2004


A Brain for All Seasons
2002


Lingua ex Machina
2000

The Cerebral Code
1996

How Brains Think
1996

 

copyright ©2005 by William H. Calvin

The Virtual Index for my books and articles, far better than my printed index in most cases:

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