Their blood differs in too many details that still need to be investigated. These slender, placid great apes are prone to catching common colds. According to one of their keepers, "they cough and sniffle all the time. Great apes can also easily catch a cold or the flu from humans. In the movie "Planet of the Apes", gorillas, chimps and orangutans speak like humans. In reality, they can't speak at all because they have a higher larynx, or voice box, which means there isn't enough space between the soft palate and the larynx - the resonating cavity is simply too small.
The same is actually true for human babies before they learn to speak. In addition, the great apes' larynx muscles and vocal chords can't move as freely and are therefore hard to coordinate.
Scans of great ape brains show a kind of preliminary speech center. Perhaps that's why they are able to grasp human sign language. Some apes know how to use more than a thousand signs. They can't form complex sentences, but they do create new words.
A female gorilla once combined the signs for white and tiger to describe a zebra: a white animal with stripes. Words other great apes came up with: "ball" and "beans" to denote "peas," "bottle" and "match" to say "lighter," and "bark" in combination with "sky" and "dog" to refer to a helicopter. A zookeeper told us that gorillas in particular swear a lot if you teach them the signs for swear words. The apes are allowed an hour of movies a day on a large screen on a wall in their compound.
The keeper says they mostly love this: "When we showed them a documentary from our zoo, they really liked that! What they can't stand is when the zoo vet shows up in the TV program. The fact that great apes resemble humans has its disadvantages for the animals, however: sometimes, they are treated as prostitutes and are being sexually abused, tied down in questionable brothels. Some female orangutans have sad lives indeed. Great apes can't swim.
As a result, zoos have to think twice about using water-filled moats around their compounds because they could easily drown. That said, Wilhelma chose to build a moat - fenced by an electric wire and complete with a non-swimmer's area - in the new great ape house.
Female gorillas usually don't mate with their closest relatives, their father and brothers. In the wild, when they've reached the right age, they leave their group, and choose a new group with a silverback who appeals to them. The girls make the choice. When a zoo wants a female gorilla to get pregnant, it passes the female on to another zoo as soon as the animals reach puberty - in keeping with the incest taboo. Female gorilla newcomers to the Wilhelma are put on the pill.
The zoo wants the young gorillas to experience other females having babies and to see how they care for their offspring before they have their own. Great apes learn from their peers how to be good mothers. Rearing children isn't an easy task - for humans and great apes alike. Dominant male orangutans develop large flaps on their jowls that the females are mightily attracted to. In fact, they prefer to mate with well-padded males.
The cheek pads are a sign that the male ranks top in the group's hierarchy. Germany's Wilhelma zoo noted a strange occurrence not too long ago: the highest-ranked male just wouldn't grow cheek pads, and no one knew why. It seems the keeper had the role of the dominant male, and when he was gone the orangutan advanced to the position. About Apes. Apes are primates. Learn More. We Need Your Help As the only accredited orangutan sanctuary in the country and one of a handful of accredited chimpanzee sanctuaries, the Center for Great Apes has been rescuing great apes for over 25 years.
About Us. Meet the Apes. You Can Help. Follow Us. The first thing to look for to tell the difference between other apes and gorillas is size. Chimpanzees range from 88 to pounds and orangutans weigh from 90 to pounds.
Gorillas are much larger, ranging anywhere from to pounds. Check the hair color. Gorillas have brown hair, while the hair of chimpanzees is black and that of orangutans is reddish-brown.
Look at the head and face of an ape. Gorillas have large heads with small ears and eyes. Their foreheads bulge outward and they have a crest of hair called the sagital crest.
Their canines pointed teeth are large.
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