Chimpanzee

Names & Nicknames: Chimpanzee, Chimp

Size: The males are the heavy hitters in the chimp world, growing up to 20% larger than the females. The men are around 1.7m in height and 34-70kg in weight, compared to the females, who only reach around 1.3m in height and 26-50kg in weight.

Smell: These noses are made for sniffing. Just like champion fridge raiders, these chimpanzees know how and where to sniff out the snacks. Their sense of smell is also used to explore their environment and recognise and identify other chimps. This also means that chimps smell and have a unique odour, just like humans do! A chimps fragrance can vary with sex, age, and other factors, and older chimps have a richer and more intense musk than younger ones. Spicy.

Communication: Chimpanzees are considered to be some of the most intelligent communicators in the animal world. Similar to humans, chimps mainly communicate with each other through a series of vocalisations, gestures, and facial expressions. Whereas chimps are very vocal like humans, using a range of sounds such as barks when hunting or grunts whilst eating, chimps really excel with their rich catalogue of hand gestures.

Favourite Hangout: Chimps have a range of preferred hangouts across their Central and West African homes, including rainforests, grasslands, and savannahs. Which habitat they prefer depends on what sub-species of chimpanzee they are. A sub-species is a group that may act a little differently from other groups of the same species, but they are still closely related enough to breed with each other and be classed as the same species. There are four sub-species of chimpanzees that live in different habitats and places. The Western chimpanzees, Central chimpanzees, Eastern chimpanzees, and Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees.

Favourite Snack: Plants and animals ranging from nuts and seeds to insects, eggs, and even occasionally other primates such as small monkeys. Their absolute favourite snack, however, is juicy fruits such as pawpaws and wild figs.

Eating Habits: Chimpanzees certainly aren't fussy, and plenty of food can be found in their African homes if you know where to look. They spend a lot of their time foraging, sifting through the forest floors for ants and fallen fruit, searching through the canopies for leaves and tree bark, and even using tools such as a well-chosen stick to break into termite nests to get a healthy serving of protein.

Toilet Humour: Food can sometimes be scarce in the forests and grasslands of Africa, so chimpanzees are followers of the philosophy ‘waste not want not’. Even if this means picking through their own poop to find some seeds to eat (for the second time), yummy!

Love Language: Chimpanzees are one of the few animals alongside humans that are thought to have sex for pleasure, and they can get frisky all year round. Chimpanzees don't mess around with long convos or wait till the third date; when a female chimp is in the mood, she’ll plop her swollen bottom right up into the face of the male she is interested in. If a male is feeling frisky, they might shake a few branches or parade their privates to the female of their choosing. And they say romance is dead.

If you see them: They may act a bit similar to humans, but chimpanzees are still wild animals and should be treated with respect. If you come across one, make sure to keep your distance; they may attack if they feel threatened. Chimpanzees are also susceptible to human disease, so by getting too close, you could be putting a whole troop at risk.

Red Flags: The biggest threats to chimpanzees are habitat loss, poaching, and disease. Their forests and grasslands are getting cut down, and they are getting hunted for their meat and to be sold as exotic pets in the illegal pet trade. As our closest relatives, they are also susceptible to human diseases such as Ebola. The unfortunate thing is that as chimpanzees don't reach maturity till around 13-15 years old, once a breeding chimpanzee is lost, it can take over a decade to replace it.

Epic Journeys: Chimpanzees are very territorial and tend to stay within their territories, with the exception that some individuals might migrate between groups in different territories. How big a territory is depends on the habitat. For example, in the thick forests, their territory might only be around 20 square kilometres, but a territory might be 10 times as big in a grassland habitat. How far they move within their territories also varies a lot depending on the specific troop of chimps. Some may only travel a few kilometres in a day, whereas some might travel 10 kilometres a day in search of good food and nest spots.

Glow-up: Unlike many animals but quite similar to humans, chimpanzees are slow growers. Whereas many mammals are ready to leap and run like an adult just a few days or even hours after being born, young chimpanzees take over a year just to learn the motor and social skills needed to survive without help from their mothers. Even then, they spend a lot of time as an adolescent. Females will mature at around 7, but most won't breed till 13-14, whereas males won't mature until around 15.

Facts: Leonardo Da Chimpy – chimpanzees are master tool users in the animal world. They are among the few species that create some ingenious solutions to finding snacks, like a fishing rod (a stick) to catch ants and termites or a hammer and anvil (two stones) to crack open nuts.

Who are they in the friendship group: The cool, athletic kids that always hang out with each other.