Family of great apes. Ancient great apes Great apes examples

The detachment unites the most developed and progressive mammals. "Primates" in translation means "first", since representatives of the monkey species are one of the most highly organized animals. There are more than 200 species of primates - these are small pygmy marmosets(up to 10cm in length), and huge gorillas (up to 180cm in length) with a weight of about 250kg.

General characteristics of the Squad

Primates inhabit tropical zones: prefer to live in dense thickets. Other types of arboreal animals climb trees with sharp claws. But primates use long fingers for this, with which they wrap around a branch.

The fore and hind limbs are five-fingered, the first finger, like in humans, is opposed to the rest. So the animals securely grab onto the branches and hold on to them. There are no claws on the fingers, but flat nails grow. Primates use their limbs not only to move, but also to grab food, clean and comb their hair.

Signs of the detachment of primates:

• binocular vision;
• limbs with five fingers;
• body densely covered with hair;
• nails are developed instead of claws;
• the first finger is opposed to the rest;
• poor development of the sense of smell;
• developed brain.

Evolution

Primates - oldest group placental mammals. With the help of the remains, it was possible to study their evolution over 90 million years, it was then that the primates were divided into primates and woolly wings.

After 5 million years, two new groups formed: dry-nosed and strep-nosed primates. Then tarsiformes, apes, lemurs appeared.

Global cooling, which occurred 30 million years ago, led to mass extinction primates, representatives remained only in Africa, America and Asia. Then the first true ancestors of modern primates began to appear.

These animals lived in trees and fed on insects. From them came orangutans, gibbons, driopithecus. The latter are an extinct group of primates that evolved into other species: chimpanzees, gorillas, humans.

The opinion of scientists that man descended from driopitenki is based on many similarities in the structure and appearance. Bipedal locomotion is the main feature that first separated humans from primates in the course of evolution.

sense organs

Among all mammals, monkeys have the most developed brain, with many convolutions in the hemispheres. Hearing and vision are well developed. The eyes simultaneously focus on the object, allowing you to accurately determine the distance, which is very important when jumping on branches.

Monkeys are able to distinguish the shape of surrounding objects and their color, being at a distance, they see ripe fruits and edible insects. Olfactory receptors do not distinguish smells well, and fingers, palms and feet, devoid of hair, are responsible for touch.

Lifestyle

They eat plants and small animals, but still prefer plant foods. Newborn primates are able to see from the first days, but they cannot move independently. The cub clings to the fur of the female, who holds it with one hand and carries it with her.

Lead active image life during the day. They unite in herds with the leader - the strongest male. Everyone obeys him and follows his instructions, which are sent through facial expressions, gestures, sounds.

habitats

In America, primates with wide nostrils are common ( broad-nosed monkeys), with an elongated tail that easily clings to branches. A well-known representative of the broad-nosed is the spider monkey, which received its name because of its long limbs.

In Africa and tropical Asia live narrow-nosed primates. The tail, for example, in monkeys, does not play a significant role during climbing, and some species are completely devoid of it. Baboons prefer to live on the ground, moving on all fours.

Squad classification

There are several classifications of the order primates. The modern one distinguishes two suborders: wet-nosed primates and dry-nosed primates.

Characters from the suborder Wet-nosed distinguish them from dry-nosed species. The main difference is a wet nose, which makes it possible to perceive odors better. The first finger is less opposed to the other fingers. Wet-nosed give more prolific offspring - up to several cubs, and dry-nosed mostly bear one child.

The division of primates into two groups is considered older: semi-monkeys (lower primates) and monkeys (higher primates):

1. The semi-monkeys include lemurs and tarsiers, small animals that are active at night. They inhabit the territory of tropical Asia and Africa.
2. Monkeys are highly organized animals, whose representatives include different types marmosets, marmosets, gibbons, as well as great apes.

The great apes include the African gorilla, chimpanzee, and orangutan. Great apes climb trees during the day in search of food, and at night they settle in nests made of boughs. They skillfully and quickly move on their hind limbs, maintaining balance with the help of the back surface of the hand, which rests on the soil. Great apes lack a tail.

Members of the family have a well-developed brain, which determines their behavior. They are endowed with excellent memory and intelligence. Great apes can make a primitive tool out of improvised means. A chimpanzee, using a branch, pulls out insects from narrow gorges, uses straws as toothpicks. Big knots, piles of earth monkeys use as weapons.

Thanks to the developed facial muscles chimpanzees can communicate by sending mimic signs to each other: they can depict fear, anger, joy. In this respect, great apes are very similar to humans.

For a person as a representative of primates, it is also characteristic: a five-fingered grasping limb, a tactile pattern, differentiation of teeth, a significant development of sensory systems, low fertility, and more. That is why man belongs to the family of great apes. hallmark people is the consciousness that arose in connection with labor activity.

Introduction

Great apes, a group of higher narrow-nosed monkeys, the most highly developed among the monkeys of the Old World; includes gibbons, orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas. Together with man, great apes constitute the superfamily hominoids (Hominoidea), which combines with the superfamily marmosetiformes into the section of narrow-nosed monkeys of the Old World. anthropoid ape anatomical

Great apes are also called anthropoids, although in modern classifications this term is usually used to refer to the suborder higher primates, which includes both higher (humanoid) and lower (monkey-like and capuchin-shaped) monkeys of the Old and New Worlds.

The purpose of the work: to characterize the family of great apes.

Work tasks:

• - to give general characteristics families of great apes;
• - consider individual members of the family: morphology, lifestyle;
• - consider the similarities and differences between the family of anthropoid with humans and marmosets.

General characteristics of the family of great apes

Great apes first appeared in the Old World towards the end of the Oligocene - about 30 million years ago. Among their ancestors, the most famous are propliopithecus - primitive gibbon-like monkeys from rainforest Fayum (Egypt), which gave rise to pliopithecus, gibbons and dryopithecus. In the Miocene there was a sharp increase in the number and diversity of species of great apes. This was the heyday of dryopithecus and other hominoids, who began to spread widely from Africa to Europe and Asia about 20-16 million years ago. Among the Asian hominoids were also Sivapithecus - the ancestors of orangutans, the line of which separated about 16-13 million years ago. According to molecular biology, the separation of chimpanzees and gorillas from the common trunk with humans occurred, most likely, 8-6 million years ago.

Anthropomorphic or great apes make up the highest group of primates and are closest to humans. These include the largest species - the gorilla and chimpanzee living in African forests, the orangutan - a large monkey from the island of Kalimantan, and several forms of gibbons from Indochina and from the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra. The number of teeth they have is the same as in humans, and just like in humans, there is no tail. Mentally, they are more gifted than other apes, and in this respect the chimpanzee stands out in particular.

In 1957, the great ape bonobo was singled out as a separate genus, a form that until then was considered only a pygmy variety of chimpanzee.

All great apes live in forests, easily climb trees and are very imperfectly adapted to movement on the ground. Unlike true tetrapods and bipeds, they have an inverse relationship between the length of the limbs of the first and second pair: their legs are relatively short and weak, while the prehensile upper limbs are significantly elongated, especially in the most skillful poison dart frogs - in gibbons and orangutans. .

When walking, the higher apes rest on the ground not with the entire sole of their feet, but only with the outer edge of the foot; with such an unsteady gait, the necessary assistance to the animal is provided by its long arms, with which it either grabs the branches of trees, or leans on the ground with the back of bent fingers, partially unloading lower limbs. Smaller gibbons, descending from trees and walking through open space, move on their hind legs, and balance with their unusually long arms like a person walking along a narrow pole.

Thus, great apes do not have the straight human gait, but they do not walk on all fours in the way that most other mammals do. Therefore, in their skeleton we find a combination of some features of a two-legged man with animal features of four-legged mammals. In connection with the elevated position of the body, the pelvis in anthropoid apes is closer in shape to the human, where it really justifies its name and supports the abdominal viscera from below. In tetrapods, the pelvis does not have to perform such a task, and its shape is different there - it is easy to see on the skeleton of a cat, dog and other four-legged mammals, including monkeys. The tail of great apes is underdeveloped, and its skeleton is represented in them, as in humans, only by a small rudiment - the coccygeal bone, which is closely soldered to the pelvis.

On the contrary, the inclined position of the cabbage soup and the stronger development of the facial bones, pulling the skull forward, bring the great apes closer to the four-legged animals. Strong muscles are required to support the head, and with this is the development of long spinous processes on the cervical vertebrae and bony ridges on the skull; both serve to attach muscles.

Strong chewing muscles also correspond to large jaws. They say that a gorilla is able to gnaw through a gun taken from a hunter with its teeth. For attaching chewing muscles in the gorilla and orangutan, there is also a longitudinal crest on the crown of the head. Due to the strong development of the facial bones and ridges on the skull, the cranial box itself turns out to be more compressed from the sides and less spacious than in humans, and this, of course, is reflected in both the size and development of the cerebral hemispheres: the gorilla is almost the same in height as a man, and the mass of her brain is three times less than the mass of the human brain (430 g for a gorilla and 1350 g for a person).

All modern anthropoids are inhabitants of tropical forests, but adaptability to life among woody vegetation they are not expressed to the same extent. Gibbons are natural-born poison dart frogs. Orangutans also constantly hang on trees; there they arrange their nests, and their fitness for climbing is clearly expressed in their structure. long arms, whose brushes with four long fingers and a shortened thumb have a characteristic monkey shape that allows them to cling tightly to the branches and branches of trees.

In contrast to orangutans, gorillas mostly lead a terrestrial lifestyle in the forests and climb trees only for food or for safety, and as for chimpanzees - smaller and heavier monkeys, they occupy an intermediate place in this respect.

Despite differences in size and morphology, all great apes have much in common. These monkeys do not have a tail, the structure of the hands is similar to that of a human, the volume of the brain is very large, and its surface is dotted with furrows and convolutions, which indicates the high intelligence of these animals. Great apes, like humans, have 4 blood types, and bonobo blood can even be transfused to a person with the corresponding blood type - this indicates their “blood” relationship with people.

MOSCOW, 17 Oct— RIA Novosti, Anna Urmantseva. When paleoanthropologists are asked at what point the genus Homo evolved from the family of great apes and what can be considered a defining moment in this process, they usually begin to talk long and vaguely about a variety of concepts.

The idea that "labor made a man out of an ape" turns out to be questioned for a long time, since in this case the answer to main question must be sought at the moment when the first tools of labor appeared. And then it turns out that those whom we arrogantly call "humanoid" have them, at a certain point in time, like two peas in a pod, they look like the tools of our ancestors. And if there are no biological remains of a creature next to a chipped stone, it is almost impossible to establish who was the owner of the "product" - an ape or a representative of the genus Homo.

Differences begin with Australopithecus. Some scientists believe that they were direct ancestors modern man, others believe that it was a sister dead-end branch of evolution.

But, according to general data, some animals existed six or seven million years ago, which in all respects resembled modern great apes. Then some of the animals from this group separated into a sapiens line. It is not completely clear whether there were Australopithecus (as you can call a large evolutionary group of hominids, whose chronological period(as a genus) is determined from 4.2 to 1.8 million years ago) erect and whether they could use tools. Some believe that the first primitive pebble-type tools still appear among Australopithecus about 3,300,000 years ago. Other scientists insist that this is already a product of the Homo genus. Further fate Homo sapiens is even more blurred.

© AP Photo / Anjan Sundaram

© AP Photo / Anjan Sundaram

Anatoly Derevyanko, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, scientific director of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explains: “Australopithecines are our predecessors, but not yet people. Homo habilis, Homo erectus and other species came from them, but no one knows who exactly was our direct ancestor. Most scientists assume that erectus, however, at some point modern people and great apes were at the same stage of development. Therefore, I am in favor of classifying the great apes in the genus Homo. On the other hand, I understand perfectly well that the tools that were made by both apes and humans are the same in form, but not in essence. Chimpanzees, cracking nuts with a stone, can get plucked. But they never use this pluck further for their own purposes. It's more of an intuitive action."

In the 19th century, people were transfused with the blood of the bonobo chimpanzee (Pan paniscus) without prior preparation - this was quite possible from a medical point of view, since our blood types are the same.

There have been several attempts to teach sign language to great apes. Successful experiments are again connected with the chimpanzee: Washoe was the first to learn - she learned 350 signs from Amslen - American language gestures. One of the most notorious was the Nim project - the chimpanzee got its name as a pun on the name of Noam Chomsky, an eminent linguist who claimed that language is unique to humans. However, here the opinions of scientists differed. Animal psychologist Herbert Terres, who raised Nim, argued that at different points in his training vocabulary reached a thousand words. Other researchers talked about 125 words. Critics pointed to the obvious inability of monkeys to memorize words, build sentences, lagging behind human children, who already know up to two thousand designations by the age of five.

And yet, the number of identical features inherent in both humans and our parallel branch, the great apes, is quite large: these are facial expressions, social behavior, binocular vision, color discrimination, body structure, the ability to maintain it in an upright position and others. Therefore, some paleoanthropologists have long been talking about the expansion of the genus Homo.

“This is more of a humanistic act than a scientific one,” explains Anatoly Derevyanko. Opponents of this idea quite rightly believe that we, humans, are separated by an ape. From the point of view of the modern view, indeed. similar. Now great apes are actively destroyed, as they are classified as predators. However, if you equate them with the genus Homo, according to all international laws, it will be forbidden to kill them. The extension of human laws to our closest relatives will contribute to their survival in natural conditions ".

The smartest, most developed monkeys are anthropoids. There are 4 species: orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and pygmy chimpanzees, or bonobos. Chimpanzees and bonobos are very similar to each other, while the other two species are completely different from chimps and from each other. But, nevertheless, all great apes have much in common. These monkeys do not have a tail, the structure of the hands is similar to that of a human, the volume of the brain is very large, and its surface is dotted with furrows and convolutions, which indicates the high intelligence of these animals. Great apes, like humans, have 4 blood groups, and bonobo blood can even be transfused to a person with the corresponding blood type - this indicates their “blood” relationship with people.

Both the chimpanzee and the gorilla live in Africa, the continent considered the cradle of mankind, while the orangutan, our most distant relative among the great apes, lives in Asia.

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE CHIMPANSEE

Chimpanzees live in groups of 20 on average. The group, headed by one male leader, includes males and females of all ages. A group of chimpanzees lives in a territory that males protect from invading neighbors.

In places where food is plentiful, chimpanzees lead sedentary life, but if food is scarce, they wander widely in search of food. It happens that the living space of several groups intersect, then they temporarily unite, and in all disputes, the group that has more males and is therefore stronger has the advantage. permanent couples chimpanzees do not form, and all adult males are free to choose a mate from among adult females, both of their own and of a neighboring, joined group.

After an 8-month pregnancy, a single completely helpless cub is born to a female chimpanzee. Up to a year, the mother carries the child on her stomach, then the baby independently moves to her back. For 9 years, mother and child are almost inseparable. Mothers teach their cubs everything they know how to do, introduce them to the world around them and to other members of the group. Sometimes grown-up babies are given to " Kindergarten”, where they frolic with their peers under the supervision of several adult females. By the age of 13, chimpanzees become adults, independent members of the group, and young males are gradually included in the struggle for leadership.

Chimpanzees are quite aggressive animals. Quarrels often occur within the group, developing into bloody fights, sometimes with a fatal outcome. A wide range of gestures, facial expressions and sounds, with which they show displeasure or approval, help monkeys build relationships with each other. Monkeys express friendly feelings by touching each other's wool.

Chimpanzees forage both on the ground and in the trees, feeling quite confident everywhere. In addition to plant foods, their diet includes insects and small animals. Moreover, hungry monkeys as a whole community can go hunting and get, for example, a gazelle.

SMART HEAD AND SKILLED HANDS

During the hunt, monkeys are able to throw stones at their prey, a hail of stones awaits a predator, such as a leopard, who dared to hunt monkeys. In order not to get wet when crossing a stream, chimpanzees can make a bridge out of sticks, use leaves as umbrellas, fly swatters, fans, and even as toilet paper.

MONSTERS OR GOOD GIANTS?

It is not difficult to imagine the feelings of a person who first saw a gorilla in the wild - a humanoid giant who frightens the alien with menacing cries, beats his chest with his fists, breaks and uproots young trees. Such meetings with forest monsters gave rise to legends about the fiends, whose superhuman strength is fraught with a serious danger to the human race. The emergence of such legends caused the ruthless extermination of gorillas. It is not known what human fear and ignorance would lead to if scientists did not take under their protection these huge monkeys about which little was known at the time.

It turned out that the "monstrous" gorillas are peaceful vegetarians, eating exclusively plant foods, moreover, they are almost not aggressive and use their strength only in defense. To avoid bloodshed, male gorillas try to scare off the enemy - be it another male or a person. That's when all means of intimidation come into play: screaming, roaring, beating your chest with your fists and breaking branches.

Gorillas live in small groups, usually 5-10 animals, including 1-2 young males, several females with cubs of different ages, and the head of the group is an older male, who is easily distinguished by the silver-gray coat on his back. The male gorilla reaches puberty by the age of 14 and instead of black hair, a light stripe appears on his back. An adult male is huge: with a height of about 180 cm, it can weigh up to 300 kg. The eldest of the silver-backed males becomes the head of the family group, and care for all its members falls on his powerful shoulders. The leader gives signals to wake up in the morning and go to sleep in the evening, chooses a path in the forest that the whole group will follow in search of food, maintains order and peace in the family. He also protects his wards from all the dangers that the rainforest is fraught with.

Cubs in the group are raised by females - their mothers. But, if suddenly the kids become orphans, it is the silver-backed patriarch who will take them under his protection, will carry them on himself, sleep next to them and watch their games. Protecting the cubs, the leader can enter into a duel with a leopard and even with armed poachers.

Often, capturing a baby gorilla costs not only the life of its mother, but also the life of the head of the group. Having lost their leader and deprived of protection and guardianship, helpless females and young animals may well die if some single male does not take care of the orphaned family.

JUST LIKE PEOPLE

The routine of gorilla life is very similar to that of humans. At sunrise, at the signal of the leader, the whole group wakes up and begins to search for food. After dinner, the family rests, digesting what they have eaten. Young males sleep in the distance, females with cubs - closer to the leader, teenagers frolic next to them - each has its own place. At night, gorillas build nest-beds from branches and leaves. Nests are usually located on the ground. Only light young animals can afford to climb low into a tree and make a bed there.

Cubs enjoy special love in the family. Toddlers spend most of their time with their mother, but the whole group is involved in their upbringing, and adults are patient with the pranks of young people. Gorillas mature slowly, only twice as fast as human children. Newborns are completely helpless and need maternal care, only by 4-5 months they can move on all fours, and by eight they can walk upright. Further maturation goes faster, surrounded by relatives, young gorillas quickly learn everything. At the age of 7, females become completely adults, males mature by 10-12 years, and at 14 years their back becomes silvery. The silverback male often leaves the group and for a long time lives alone until he manages to start a new family.

THE MAIN ENEMY IS MAN

The huge and strong gorillas few enemies in nature. Even the largest predator in the African forests, the leopard, rarely dares to attack a gorilla. But, like all animals, forest giants are powerless against traps, snares and poachers' guns, which produce cubs for livestock traders, skulls and hands of adult males for lovers of exotic souvenirs and meat for gourmets, fans of African cuisine. And although the strictest measures are taken to protect these rare animals, gorillas continue to be killed, because sometimes poaching is the only form of income available to the local population.

"FOOD PEOPLE"

"Orangutan" - translated from Malay - means "forest man". This is the name of the great apes that live in the jungles of the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra. Orangutans are amazing creatures and differ from other great apes in many ways. Firstly, orangutans lead an arboreal lifestyle and, despite their considerable weight (70-100 kg), they climb trees perfectly at a height of up to 20 m and do not like to descend to the ground. It is clear that such heavy animals cannot jump from branch to branch, but they are able to climb confidently and quickly. Orangutans feed almost all day long, eating fruits and leaves, as well as bird eggs and chicks. In the evening, orangutans build nests, each their own, and settle down there for the night. They sleep, holding on to a branch with one paw, so as not to fall in a dream. Every night these monkeys settle down in a new place and rebuild their bed. Unlike gorillas and chimpanzees, orangutans rarely form groups, preferring to live alone or in pairs (female - male, mother - cubs), but sometimes a pair of adult animals and several cubs of different ages form a family group.

A female orangutan gives birth to one cub, which the mother takes care of for almost 7 years, until he becomes quite an adult. Until the age of 3, a small orangutan feeds almost exclusively on mother's milk, and only then does the mother begin to accustom him to solid food. Chewing the leaves, she makes a vegetable puree for her child. Preparing the baby for adult life, his mother teaches him to climb trees and build nests. Baby orangutans are very affectionate and playful, and the whole learning process is perceived by them as entertaining game. Orangutans are very smart, in captivity they learn to use tools and even make them themselves. But in nature, these monkeys rarely use their abilities: the constant search for food does not leave them time to develop natural intelligence.

When asked what species of monkeys belong to the group of anthropoids, many people answer without hesitation: "chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan." Those who are more knowledgeable in zoology also call the gibbon. But about the existence of our much more close relative, bonobo, or pygmy chimpanzee, few people know. And this despite the fact that the set of bonobo genes coincides with the set of human genes by 98%!

Orangutans and gorillas are able to determine from the image of an animal that it belongs to a certain class: they distinguish between mammals, birds, reptiles, insects and fish.

Orangutans and bonobos are able to plan their actions. Both types of monkeys saved up the necessary tools to receive this or that reward in the future. Analyzing a series of carefully designed experiments, the researchers concluded that the ability to foresee the future is not exclusively a human trait. This feature is most likely embedded in the thought patterns of animals.

Alexander Markov

Primates have evolved many new genes (mostly by doubling old ones), but very little is known about the functions of these genes and the details of their evolutionary history. One such gene, CDC14Bretro, appeared in a common ancestor of great apes as a result of the activity of retrotransposons. Later, in the common ancestor of gorilla, chimpanzee, and man, the gene underwent a rapid change under the influence of selection, changing its "profession" and "place of work."

Alexander Markov

The results of the study of the most ancient and most complete skeleton of an Australopithecus Afar cub have been published. The skeleton was discovered in December 2000 in eastern Ethiopia, around the same area where the famous Lucy was found in 1974, and belongs to a three-year-old girl who lived 3.3 million years ago. Apparently, the girl died during the flood and was immediately covered with sand, which ensured the exceptional safety of the bones. The study of the unique find confirmed that the Afar australopithecines were bipedal creatures with an almost human lower body, retaining many simian features in the structure of the arms and skull.

Of all the arguments proving that people are fundamentally different from animals, the most compelling concerns the ability of a person to understand the minds of others. Only people can not only perceive their experiences, but also realize that the thoughts and views of other people are different from their own. However, the results of the latest study published in Science suggest that monkeys are endowed with the same ability.

The formation of vocalizations (that is, sounds made) in newborn marmosets depends on whether they receive feedback from parents. At first glance, this result, of course, does not look like sensational discovery. However, it is very important because it contradicts the traditional notion that the sound signals in primates are strictly innate and in no way dependent on experience and social environment. We set out to find out what the new results mean for understanding the nature of language, what scientists currently think about its origin, and why it is so difficult to teach monkeys to speak.

Western lowland gorilla Koko was born on July 4, 1971 at the San Francisco Zoo. At the age of one year, animal psychology student Francine Patterson began working with Koko, who began to teach her sign language. At the age of 19, the gorilla successfully passed the "mirror test", which determines the ability of animals to recognize themselves in the mirror ( most of gorillas and other animals are unable to do this). Patterson admitted that at the beginning of her training, she also believed that the gorilla unconsciously performs actions in order to receive a reward, but rethought this after Koko began to invent her own words. The ring became the "finger bracelet" and the mask was called the "eye cap". Koko was one of the few known animals that had pets - kittens, which she chose the name herself.

Researchers have unearthed ancient hammer stones in Ivory Coast. According to some signs, scientists have determined that these tools were used by chimpanzees. And if the conclusions of archaeologists are correct, we have the earliest famous example this behavior of monkeys.

For the first time, scientists have documented wild gorillas using simple tools (sticks) to measure the depth of a swamp.

Great apes, or hominids, are not human ancestors. However, most likely, humans and anthropoid descend from common ancestors. Our anatomy is very similar to that of hominids, but the human brain is much larger. The most important difference between a person and a great ape is the mind, the ability to think, feel, do deliberate actions and communicate using language.

Hominid (lat. Hominidae) is a family of primates, which includes gibbons and hominids. The latter include orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and humans. The first researchers who discovered such monkeys in the jungle were struck by their resemblance to humans and at first considered them to be a kind of cross between man and animal.

The brain of modern humanoids is relatively larger in volume than that of other animals (except dolphins): up to 600 cm³ (in large species); it is marked by well-developed furrows and whorls. Therefore, the highest nervous activity these monkeys resembles a human one, they easily produce conditioned reflexes and - most importantly - they are able to use various objects as the simplest tools. In them good memory, a fairly rich facial expression expressing different emotions: joy, anger, sadness, etc. But, despite all the similarities with a person, they can not be put on the same level with people.

Chimpanzee(lat. Pan) live in Africa, where, apparently, the first people appeared. common chimpanzee grow up to 1.3 m, weight - up to 90 kg, able to move on their hind limbs. It is the closest primate to humans. Once every three to five years, the female gives birth to one cub, which remains in the care of the elders for a long time. Chimpanzee family ties are very strong. It happens that an old female helps her daughter to nurse her grandchildren. Chimpanzees have a very rich "language" of communication: sounds, facial expressions and gestures.

When they ask, they quite humanly stretch out their hands. Rejoicing at the meeting, they hug and kiss. They know how to notify relatives by drumming on hollow tree trunks. They use stones and branches as a tool. They break nuts with stones and get termites with twigs. Leaves applied to wounds medicinal plants and even ... wipe them after the toilet. In male chimpanzees, as in humans, male friendship for life. Such inseparable friends are always ready to help each other. They live in family groups, learn quickly and use a variety of tools. Although chimpanzees pass on their accumulated experience to the next generations, no animal is able to do this as effectively as a person. Pygmy chimpanzees are distinguished by a more fragile physique, long legs, black skin (pink in a normal chimpanzee), etc.

Gorillas(males) grow to 1.75 m or more and weigh up to 250 kg. Bust up to 180 cm. This is the most great primate world, including man! Its range is humid. equatorial forest Central and East Africa. An ardent vegetarian. It feeds on fruits, succulent herbaceous vegetation, young shoots. No meat food in nature does not eat! An adult male always has a gray back. In gorillas it is a sign of male maturity. At night, females with children sleep in the trees in the nest, and heavy males on the ground arrange a bed of branches. By nature, gorillas are phlegmatic and do not quarrel with anyone. Not aggressive. They begin to rage only when they try to persecute them, beat their chests, and then attack the enemy and selflessly protect their relatives. A wonderful example of true nobility for animals and people.

s(lat. Pongo) live in Borneo and Sumatra. Males grow up to 1.5 m, weight can reach 130 kg. Long forelimbs allow them to easily move through the trees. This is the largest tree animal in the world! The female gives birth to only one cub every three to five years. A child up to four or five years old remains under her care. From the age of 4, they begin to unite in games with other kids. Its close relationship with man is confirmed even by the name. Orangutan means "forest man" in Malay. The orangutan is very strong, only the elephant and the tiger cause him respect! In the hands of a leisurely, even slow. Doesn't do jumps. He simply swings the tree he is on, with a long strong arm intercepts the branch of the neighboring one, then pulls himself up - and already on another tree. Its slowness is deceptive, not a single person in the forest can catch up with the orangutan. At night, it settles in a nest built from branches and leaves. It turns out a wonderful springy bed. From the downpour, it often hides under a plucked giant palm leaf, like under an umbrella.

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