1. How Much of Our DNA Do We Share with Chimpanzees?

Ape Genius

Homo sapiens have been the dominant species on Earth since our rise 200,000 years ago during the Pleistocene (Great Ice Age). In fact as hunter-gatherers we eliminated almost all the large mammals that once roamed Earth during that time. And yet we do not possess the physical traits of other successful predators. We lack the speed of the gazelle, the strong jaws of lions or the deadly claws of catamounts. How did we outcompete these predators that once preyed upon our pre-human ancestors? The answer lies in our ability to communicate ideas to each other through language and cooperate on a plan as a group. Humans extraordinary social skills, our ability to teach and learn from each other and cooperate together were the traits that allowed us to come to take control over Earth and all its biodiversity. Why didn’t the other dozen species of humans develop these same traits? Since they are extinct we may never know, but we can look for clues by exploring the differences in socialization, cooperation and learning between humans and chimpanzees, the creature now most related to us, the last humans.

1. How much of our DNA do we share with chimpanzees?

2. Who are our closest living relatives?

3. What are the juvenile chimps doing in the water?

4. What does the chimp use as a tool to get the peanut from the tube?

5. What are chimps making to use to get their meat in the forest?

6. How are chimps like our earlier human ancestors?

7. Sharing technology is an example of ______.

8. Who do the young watch and copy to learn their culture?

9. How did Judy's chimp mates learn how to get grapes?

10. How did the other hostile chimp group learn the grape trick?

11. What did Jane Goodall first observe about chimps and their emotions?

12. What did the mother do with the dead baby chimps body?

13. What did Jane Goodall observe about chimps capturing termites?

14. Jane Goodall also observed a band of chimps hunting and possibly______.

15. Chimps will ask for help, but will they help humans?

16. Why did the one chimp pull the hidden rope?

17. Did the chimps cooperate to get the food on the tray?

18. What must the helping chimp be?

19. Bonobos are more ______than other species of chimps.

20. What did the Bonobos do to defend a member of their species?

21. Can chimps learn number order?

22. Is it easy for chimps?

23. How many words does Kanzi have in her vocabulary?

24. What is limiting apes ability to cooperate?

25. What do chimps lack?

26. What did one study reveal about children who could resist temptation?

27. What were humans able to control that allowed us to better cooperate?

28. Do apes use symbols outside of the lab?

29. What happens between ages three and four in humans?

30. Why do the kids copy the grownup when the apes do not after seeing into the box?

31. Learning is the ______way to get a new idea (faster than imitating or re-inventing).

32. What is pointing a first sign of in human babies?

33. Why do dogs appear to understand pointing unlike apes?

34. Pointing creates a triangle between an object and _____ humans.

35. Humans also ______other humans unlike apes.

36. Is it natural for humans to want to teach?

37. Each generation ______on the last intellectual achievements of previous generations of humans.

38. Who are the most social of apes?

Answer the question: There are two species of chimpanzee today, the African chimpanzee and the Bonobo. African chimps are more aggressive than the more passive (peaceful) Bonobo. Of the two species of chimpanzees which more resemble humans in their socialization traits?