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Dr. Anne Pusey: The Leakey Foundation

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California Academy of Sciences

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Did Chimps and Humans Inherit Common Social Behaviors?

02 min 51 sec

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Anne Pusey discusses how female chimpanzees leave the communities in which they were born upon reaching adolescence, a habit likely developed to avoid inbreeding. Sharing similarities to many human societies, does this chimp practice point to a shared trait passed down from a common ancestor?
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01 hr 18 min 23 sec

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Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution

Encyclopædia Britannica Articles

chimpanzee: West African, or masked, chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus).Helmut Albrecht/Bruce Coleman Ltd.Species (Pan troglodytes) of great ape that inhabits the rain forests and woodland savannas of equatorial Africa, the closest living relative to humans. Chimps are 3–5.5 ft (1–1.7 m) tall when standing upright, weigh 70–130 lbs (32–60 kg), and have a brown or black coat and a bare face. They do most of their feeding in the trees, swinging from branch to branch; to move any distance they walk, usually on all fours, on the ground. They eat mostly fruits, berries, leaves, and seeds, some termites and ants, and occasionally a young baboon or bush pig. They are capable of problem solving, tool use, and deceit. Chimpanzees are highly social and live in flexible groups (15–100 or more members) known as communities. In the wild they live about 45 years, in captivity more than 50. See also bonobo.; chimpanzee on britannica.com
Goodall, Jane: (born April 3, 1934, London, Eng.) British ethologist. Soon after finishing high school, she fulfilled her childhood ambition of traveling to Africa, where she assisted Louis Leakey (see Leakey family), who suggested she study chimpanzees. She received a Ph.D. from Cambridge University for her work and remained at the research centre she founded in Gombe, Tanz., until 1975. In 1977 she cofounded the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education, and Conservation in the U.S. Her observations established, among other things, that chimpanzees are omnivorous rather than vegetarian, can make and use tools, and have complex and highly developed social behaviours. Noteworthy among her writings are In the Shadow of Man (1971) and The Chimpanzees of Gombe (1986). She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2003.; Goodall, Jane on britannica.com