In the first picture you see a male and female chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes, family Hominidae. This species is found in central and west Africa north of the Congo River.  Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus, the Bonobo chimpanzee, are our closest living relatives in the primates. You can find more about their habitat and natural history on the University of Wisconsin website. Wikipedia also provides a general treatment of this species and the Bonobo.

If you are interested in the genetic relationships between humans and the chimpanzees, there is a journal article from Nature that discusses the research. Be advised it is written for people well versed in the science of genetics.

Our closest relatives in the primate community have readily identifiable expressions to which we can relate. In the image above, it appears that she is asking him for a bite of orange.

In the third, she becomes more insistent and he glares at her.

In the final image, she appears to complain while he guiltily eats his orange. Chimpanzee means mock man in the Bantu language and these pictures show how closely their behavior resembles our own. Like all of us, I enjoy observing them and I hope they can be kept from extinction but that requires habitat preservation and wise management. Thankfully, there are established parks and preserves in the African countries where they live. Perhaps, we will be wise enough to coexist with our closest relatives and enrich our future with these remarkable creatures.

The post Chimpanzees Are Our Closest Primate Relatives appeared first on GJM Nature Media.

Pictured above is a silverback male of the Western Lowland Gorilla species, Gorilla gorilla gorilla. The family that contains the 4 gorilla subspecies, the Chimpanzees, and Humans is Hominidae. The Cross River subspecies, Gorilla gorilla diehli, is critically endangered having only 250 adults left in the wild. You can read more on Wikipedia and at the University of Wisconsin’s web page.

Both subspecies of Gorilla gorilla can have brownish hair on their heads, their hair is shorter than their eastern cousins, and they are smaller in overall weight and size. They live in Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria and the Republic of Congo. The Sanaga River separates the two subspecies from each other.

The second image shows a female Western Lowland Gorilla. Like the chimpanzee they have very expressive faces.

Next to the chimpanzees, they are our closest primate relatives. All of the Gorillas are endangered in their home ranges by encroachment and poaching by humans. They are also subject to death from diseases that affect humans and the chimpanzees. Ebola outbreaks threaten their existence as well as ours. It would be a tragedy for these intelligent creatures to go extinct because of the actions or inaction of our species.

The post Western Lowland Gorilla Another Primate Cousin appeared first on GJM Nature Media.