1.
Bonobo
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The bonobo is distinguished by relatively long legs, pink lips, dark face and tail-tuft through adulthood, and parted long hair on its head. The bonobo is found in a 500,000 km2 area of the Congo Basin in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the species is omnivorous and inhabits primary and secondary forests, including seasonally inundated swamp forests. Political instability in the region and the timidity of bonobos has meant there has been relatively little work done observing the species in its natural habitat. Along with the chimpanzee, the bonobo is the closest extant relative to humans. Because the two species are not proficient swimmers, the formation of the Congo River 1. 5–2 million years ago led to the speciation of the bonobo. Bonobos live south of the river, and thereby were separated from the ancestors of the common chimpanzee, there is no concrete data on population numbers, but the estimate is between 29,500 and 50,000 individuals. The species is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List and is threatened by destruction and human population growth and movement. They typically live 40 years in captivity, their lifespan in the wild is unknown. As of June 2016 a total of 119 live in zoos across Europe,65 distributed between six different German zoos, and a further 54 in zoos in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and England. Despite the alternative common name pygmy chimpanzee, the bonobo is not especially diminutive when compared to the common chimpanzee, Pygmy may instead refer to the pygmy peoples who live in the same area. The name bonobo first appeared in 1954, when Eduard Paul Tratz and Heinz Heck proposed it as a new and separate generic term for pygmy chimpanzees. The name is thought to be a misspelling on a crate from the town of Bolobo on the Congo River. The term has also reported as being a word for ancestor in an extinct Bantu language. Fossils of Pan species were not described until 2005, existing chimpanzee populations in West and Central Africa do not overlap with the major human fossil sites in East Africa. However, Pan fossils have now been reported from Kenya and this would indicate that both humans and members of the Pan clade were present in the East African Rift Valley during the Middle Pleistocene. According to A. Schwarz published his findings in 1929, in 1933, American anatomist Harold Coolidge offered a more detailed description of the bonobo, and elevated it to species status. The American psychologist and primatologist Robert Yerkes was also one of the first scientists to notice differences between bonobos and chimpanzees. These were first discussed in detail in a study by Eduard Paul Tratz, the first official publication of the sequencing and assembly of the bonobo genome became publicly available in June 2012. 4% divergent from the chimpanzee genome
2.
Hominidae
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Several revisions in classifying the great apes have caused the use of the term hominid to vary over time. Its original meaning referred only to humans and their closest non-extant relatives and that restrictive meaning has now been largely assumed by the term hominin, which comprises all members of the human clade after the split from the chimpanzees. The current, 21st-century meaning of hominid includes all the great apes including humans, the most recent common ancestor of all Hominidae lived roughly 14 million years ago, when the ancestors of the orangutans speciated from the ancestral line of the other three genera. Those ancestors of the family Hominidae had already speciated from the family Hylobatidae, in the early Miocene, about 22 million years ago, there were many species of arboreally adapted primitive catarrhines from East Africa, the variety suggests a long history of prior diversification. Fossils at 20 million years ago include fragments attributed to Victoriapithecus, the most recent of these far-flung Miocene apes is Oreopithecus, from the fossil-rich coal beds in northern Italy and dated to 9 million years ago. Species close to the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans may be represented by Nakalipithecus fossils found in Kenya and Ouranopithecus found in Greece. Molecular evidence suggests that between 8 and 4 million years ago, first the gorillas, and then the split off from the line leading to the humans. Human DNA is approximately 98. 4% identical to that of chimpanzees when comparing single nucleotide polymorphisms, the earliest fossils argued by some to belong to the human lineage are Sahelanthropus tchadensis and Orrorin tugenensis, followed by Ardipithecus, with species Ar. kadabba and Ar. ramidus. The classification of the apes has been revised several times in the last few decades. The original meaning of the referred to only humans and their closest relatives—what is now the modern meaning of the term hominin. And the meaning of the taxon Hominidae changed gradually, leading to a different usage of hominid that today all the great apes including humans. A hominid is a member of the family Hominidae, the apes, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees. A hominine is a member of the subfamily Homininae, gorillas, chimpanzees, a hominin is a member of the tribe Hominini, Chimpanzees and humans. A homininan is a member of the subtribe Hominina of the tribe Hominini, a human is a member of the genus Homo, of which Homo sapiens is the only extant species, and within that Homo sapiens sapiens is the only surviving subspecies. For each clade it is indicated approximately when newer extant clades emerged, some texts will refer to Homonini as the Hominina branch. Many scientists, including paleoanthropologists, continue to use the term hominid to mean humans, as mentioned, Hominidae was originally the name given to the family of humans and their close relatives, with the other great apes all being placed in a separate family, the Pongidae. However, that eventually made Pongidae paraphyletic because at least one great ape species proved to be more closely related to humans than to other great apes. Most taxonomists today encourage monophyletic groups—this would require, in this case, thus, many biologists now assign Pongo to the family Hominidae
3.
Personhood
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Personhood is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality. According to law, only a person or legal personality has rights, protections, privileges, responsibilities. Processes through which personhood is recognized socially and legally vary cross-culturally, anthropologist Beth Conklin has shown how personhood is tied to social relations among the Wari people of Rondônia, Brazil. Bruce Knaufts studies of the Gebusi people of Papua New Guinea depict a context in which individuals become persons incrementally, goodale has also examined the construction of personhood in Papua New Guinea. Capacities or attributes common to definitions of personhood can include human nature, agency, self-awareness, a notion of the past and future, in philosophy, the word person may refer to various concepts. According to Charles Taylor, the problem with the naturalist view is that it solely on a performance criterion to determine what is an agent. Thus, other things that exhibit similarly complex adaptive behaviour could not be distinguished from persons, instead, Taylor proposes a significance-based view of personhood, What is crucial about agents is that things matter to them. We thus cannot simply identify agents by a performance criterion, nor assimilate animals to machines, there are matters of significance for human beings which are peculiarly human, and have no analogue with animals. Others, such as American Philosopher Francis J. Beckwith, argue that personhood is not linked to function at all, what is crucial morally is the being of a person, not his or her functioning. …A human person who lacks the ability to think rationally is still a person because of her nature. Consequently, it makes sense to speak of a human being’s lack if, Philosopher J. P. Harry G. Frankfurt writes that, What philosophers have lately come to accept as analysis of the concept of a person is not actually analysis of that concept at all. They are capable of wanting to be different, in their preferences and purposes, many animals appear to have the capacity for what I shall call first-order desires or desires of the first order, which are simply desires to do or not to do one thing or another. No animal other than man, however, appears to have the capacity for reflective self-evaluation that is manifested in the formation of second-order desires, the criteria for being a person. Are designed to capture those attributes which are the subject of our most humane concern with ourselves, as it turns out, this erasure. Other philosophers have defined persons in different ways, Boethius gives the definition of person as an individual substance of a rational nature. Mary Midgley defines a “person” as being a conscious, thinking being, while many of Whites criteria are somewhat anthropocentric, some animals such as dolphins would still be considered persons. Some animal rights groups have also championed recognition for animals as persons, all four concepts require full articulation for any one of them to be fully intelligible
4.
Human
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Modern humans are the only extant members of Hominina tribe, a branch of the tribe Hominini belonging to the family of great apes. Several of these hominins used fire, occupied much of Eurasia and they began to exhibit evidence of behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago. In several waves of migration, anatomically modern humans ventured out of Africa, the spread of humans and their large and increasing population has had a profound impact on large areas of the environment and millions of native species worldwide. Humans are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression and the exchange of ideas. Humans create complex structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals. These human societies subsequently expanded in size, establishing various forms of government, religion, today the global human population is estimated by the United Nations to be near 7.5 billion. In common usage, the word generally refers to the only extant species of the genus Homo—anatomically and behaviorally modern Homo sapiens. In scientific terms, the meanings of hominid and hominin have changed during the recent decades with advances in the discovery, there is also a distinction between anatomically modern humans and Archaic Homo sapiens, the earliest fossil members of the species. The English adjective human is a Middle English loanword from Old French humain, ultimately from Latin hūmānus, the words use as a noun dates to the 16th century. The native English term man can refer to the species generally, the species binomial Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th century work Systema Naturae. The generic name Homo is a learned 18th century derivation from Latin homō man, the species-name sapiens means wise or sapient. Note that the Latin word homo refers to humans of either gender, the genus Homo evolved and diverged from other hominins in Africa, after the human clade split from the chimpanzee lineage of the hominids branch of the primates. The closest living relatives of humans are chimpanzees and gorillas, with the sequencing of both the human and chimpanzee genome, current estimates of similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA sequences range between 95% and 99%. The gibbons and orangutans were the first groups to split from the leading to the humans. The splitting date between human and chimpanzee lineages is placed around 4–8 million years ago during the late Miocene epoch, during this split, chromosome 2 was formed from two other chromosomes, leaving humans with only 23 pairs of chromosomes, compared to 24 for the other apes. There is little evidence for the divergence of the gorilla, chimpanzee. Each of these species has been argued to be an ancestor of later hominins
5.
Chimpanzee
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Chimpanzees are one of the two species of the genus Pan, the other being the bonobo. Together with gorillas, they are the only exclusively African species of ape that are currently extant. Native to sub-Saharan Africa, both chimpanzees and bonobos are found in the Congo jungle. In addition, P. troglodytes is divided into four subspecies, based on genome sequencing, the two extant Pan species diverged around one million years ago. The most obvious differences are that chimpanzees are somewhat larger, more aggressive and male-dominated, while the bonobos are more gracile, peaceful and their hair is typically black or brown. Males and females differ in size and appearance, both chimps and bonobos are some of the most social great apes, with social bonds occurring among individuals in large communities. Fruit is the most important component of a diet, however, they will also eat vegetation, bark, honey, insects. They can live over 30 years in both the wild and captivity, Chimpanzees and bonobos are equally humanitys closest living relatives. As such, they are among the largest-brained, and most intelligent of primates, they use a variety of sophisticated tools and construct elaborate sleeping nests each night from branches and they have both been extensively studied for their learning abilities. There may even be distinctive cultures within populations, field studies of Pan troglodytes were pioneered by primatologist Jane Goodall. Both Pan species are considered to be endangered as human activities have caused declines in the populations. Threats to wild populations include poaching, habitat destruction. Several conservation and rehabilitation organisations are dedicated to the survival of Pan species in the wild, the first use of the name chimpanze is recorded in The London Magazine in 1738, glossed as meaning mockman in a language of the Angolans. The spelling chimpanzee is found in a 1758 supplement to Chambers Cyclopædia, the colloquialism chimp was most likely coined some time in the late 1870s. The common chimpanzee was named Simia troglodytes by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1776, the species name troglodytes is a reference to the Troglodytae, an African people described by Greco-Roman geographers. Blumenbach first used it in his De generis humani varietate nativa liber in 1776, the genus name Pan was first introduced by Lorenz Oken in 1816. An alternative Theranthropus was suggested by Brookes 1828 and Chimpansee by Voigt 1831, troglodytes was not available, as it had been given as the name of a genus of wren in 1809. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature adopted Pan as the official name of the genus in 1895
6.
Gorilla
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Gorillas are ground-dwelling, predominantly herbivorous apes that inhabit the forests of central Africa. The eponymous genus Gorilla is divided into two species, the gorillas and the western gorillas, and either four or five subspecies. They are the largest living primates, the DNA of gorillas is highly similar to that of humans, from 95–99% depending on what is counted, and they are the next closest living relatives to humans after the chimpanzees and bonobos. Gorillas natural habitats cover tropical or subtropical forests in Africa, although their range covers a small percentage of Africa, gorillas cover a wide range of elevations. The mountain gorilla inhabits the Albertine Rift montane cloud forests of the Virunga Volcanoes, ranging in altitude from 2, 200–4,300 metres. The word gorilla comes from the history of Hanno the Navigator, members of the expedition encountered a savage people, the greater part of whom were women, whose bodies were hairy, and who our interpreters called Gorillae. The word was later used as the species name, though it is unknown whether what these ancient Carthaginians encountered were truly gorillas, another species of ape or monkeys. The American physician and missionary Thomas Staughton Savage and naturalist Jeffries Wyman first described the gorilla in 1847 from specimens obtained in Liberia. The name was derived from Ancient Greek Γόριλλαι, meaning tribe of hairy women, the closest relatives of gorillas are the other two Homininae species, chimpanzees and humans, all of them having diverged from a common ancestor about 7 million years ago. Human gene sequences differ only 1. 6% on average from the sequences of corresponding gorilla genes, until recently, gorillas were considered to be a single species, with three subspecies, the western lowland gorilla, the eastern lowland gorilla and the mountain gorilla. There is now agreement that there are two species, each with two subspecies, more recently, a third subspecies has been claimed to exist in one of the species. The separate species and subspecies developed from a type of gorilla during the Ice Age. Primatologists continue to explore the relationships between various gorilla populations, the species and subspecies listed here are the ones upon which most scientists agree. The proposed third subspecies of Gorilla beringei, which has not yet received a trinomen, is the Bwindi population of the mountain gorilla, some variations that distinguish the classifications of gorilla include varying density, size, hair colour, length, culture, and facial widths. Now, over 100,000 western lowland gorillas are thought to exist in the wild, with 4,000 in zoos, mountain gorillas are the most severely endangered, with an estimated population of about 880 left in the wild and none in zoos. Population genetics of the lowland gorillas suggest that the western and eastern lowland populations diverged ~261 thousand years ago, gorillas move around by knuckle-walking, although they sometimes walk bipedally for short distances while carrying food or in defensive situations. Wild male gorillas weigh 135 to 180 kg while females usually weigh half as much as adult males at 70–115 kg. Adult males are 1.7 to 1.8 m tall, female gorillas are shorter, with smaller arm spans
7.
Orangutan
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The orangutans are the two exclusively Asian species of extant great apes. Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, orangutans are found in only the rainforests of Borneo. Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were considered to be one species, since 1996, they have been divided into two species, the Bornean orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan. In addition, the Bornean species is divided three subspecies. Based on genome sequencing, the two extant orangutan species evidently diverged around 400,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Ponginae subfamily split from the main ape line in Africa 16 to 19 million years ago and spread into Asia. Orangutans are the most arboreal of the apes and spend most of their time in trees. Their hair is typically reddish-brown, instead of the brown or black hair typical of chimpanzees, males and females differ in size and appearance. Dominant adult males have distinctive cheek pads and produce long calls that attract females, younger males do not have these characteristics and resemble adult females. Orangutans are the most solitary of the apes, with social bonds occurring primarily between mothers and their dependent offspring, who stay together for the first two years. Fruit is the most important component of a diet, however. They can live over 30 years in both the wild and captivity, orangutans are among the most intelligent primates, they use a variety of sophisticated tools and construct elaborate sleeping nests each night from branches and foliage. The apes have been studied for their learning abilities. There may even be distinctive cultures within populations, field studies of the apes were pioneered by primatologist Birutė Galdikas. Both orangutan species are considered to be critically endangered, human activities have caused severe declines in the populations and ranges of both species. Threats to wild populations include poaching, habitat destruction. Several conservation and rehabilitation organisations are dedicated to the survival of orangutans in the wild, the name orangutan is derived from the Malay and Indonesian words orang meaning person and hutan meaning forest, thus person of the forest. Orang Hutan was originally not used to refer to apes, the Malay words used to refer specifically to the ape are maias and mawas, but it is unclear if those words refer to just orangutans, or to all apes in general. The word appeared in several German-language descriptions of Indonesian zoology in the 17th century, the likely origin of the word comes specifically from the Banjarese variety of Malay
8.
Primatology
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Primatology is the scientific study of primates. There are two centers of primatology, Western primatology and Japanese primatology. These two divergent disciplines stem from their cultural backgrounds and philosophies that went into their founding. Although, fundamentally, both Western and Japanese primatology share many of the principles, the areas of their focus in primate research. Western primatology stems primarily from research by North American and European scientists, the study of primatology looks at the biological and psychological aspects of non-human primates. The focus is on studying the links between humans and primates. It is believed that by understanding our closest animal relatives, we might understand the nature shared with our ancestors. The general belief is that the observation of nature must be either extremely limited. Either way, the observers must be neutral to their subjects and this allows for data to be unbiased and for the subjects to be uninfluenced by human interference. Field is done in natural environments, in which scientific observers watch primates in their natural habitat, laboratory study is done in controlled lab settings. In lab settings, scientists are able to perform controlled experimentation on the learning capabilities, in semi-free ranging studies, scientists are able to watch how primates might act in the wild but have easier access to them, and the ability to control their environments. Such facilities include the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Georgia, all types of primate study in the Western methodology are meant to be neutral. Although there are certain Western primatologists who do more subjective research, early field primatology tended to focus on individual researchers. Researchers such as Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall are examples of this, long-term sites of research tend to be best associated with their founders, and this led to some tension between younger primatologists and the veterans in the field. The discipline of Japanese primatology was developed out of animal ecology and it is mainly credited to Kinji Imanishi and Junichiro Itani. Imanishi was an animal ecologist who began studying wild horses before focusing more on primate ecology and he helped found the Primate Research Group in 1950. Junichiro was a renowned anthropologist and a professor at Kyoto University and he is a co-founder of the Primate Research Institute and the Centre for African Area Studies. The Japanese discipline of primatology tends to be interested in the social aspects of primates
9.
Jane Goodall
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Dame Jane Morris Goodall DBE, formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. Considered to be the worlds foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 55-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots & Shoots program and she has served on the board of the Nonhuman Rights Project since its founding in 1996. Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall was born in 1934 in London to Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall, a businessman, and Margaret Myfanwe Joseph, as a child, she was given a lifelike chimpanzee stuffed animal named Jubilee by her father, her fondness for the toy started her early love of animals. Today, the animal still sits on her dresser in London. As she writes in her book, Reason for Hope, “My mother’s friends were horrified by this toy, thinking it would frighten me and give me nightmares. ”Goodall has a sister, Judith, who shares the same birthday, though the two were born four years apart. Goodall had always been passionate about animals and Africa, which brought her to the farm of a friend in the Kenya highlands in 1957. Leakey, believing that the study of existing great apes could provide indications of the behaviour of early hominids, was looking for a chimpanzee researcher, instead, he proposed that Goodall work for him as a secretary. After obtaining his wife Mary Leakeys approval, Louis sent Goodall to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, in 1958, Leakey sent Goodall to London to study primate behaviour with Osman Hill and primate anatomy with John Napier. Leakey raised funds, and on 14 July 1960, Goodall went to Gombe Stream National Park, Leakey arranged funding and in 1962, he sent Goodall, who had no degree, to Cambridge University. She went to Newnham College, and obtained a PhD degree in ethology and she became the eighth person to be allowed to study for a PhD there without first having obtained a BA or BSc. The couple had a son, Hugo Eric Louis, they divorced in 1974, the following year, she married Derek Bryceson, he died of cancer in October 1980. Goodall has expressed fascination with Bigfoot, when asked if she believed in God, Goodall said in September 2010, I dont have any idea of who or what God is. But I do believe in some spiritual power. I feel it particularly when Im out in nature and its just something thats bigger and stronger than what I am or what anybody is. Goodall is best known for her study of social and family life. She began studying the Kasakela chimpanzee community in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, without collegiate training directing her research, Goodall observed things that strict scientific doctrines may have overlooked. She found that, it isnt only human beings who have personality and she also observed behaviours such as hugs, kisses, pats on the back, and even tickling, what we consider human actions
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