Book contents
- Chimpanzee
- Reviews
- Chimpanzee
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Sister’s Keeper
- 2 Wild Lesson
- 3 A Most Surprising Creature
- 4 Kin
- 5 Scratching Out a Living in an Unforgiving World
- 6 Guts, Glorious Guts, Large Stomach, and Colon
- 7 Thews, Sinews, and Bone
- 8 Arboreal Gathering, Terrestrial Traveling
- 9 Forged in Nature’s Cauldron
- 10 Up from the Protoape
- 11 Building a Natural Wonder
- 12 The Source of Similarity
- 13 Making Your Way in the Great Wild World
- 14 The Grim Reaper in the Forest Primeval
- 15 Powering Life
- 16 Shelter from the Storm
- 17 Meat-Seeking Missiles
- 18 The Mind of the Chimpanzee
- 19 The Brain of the Chimpanzee
- 20 Tired Nature’s Sweet Restorer
- 21 Chimpanzee Thought Transfer
- 22 Ape Implements
- 23 Wisdom of the Ages
- 24 The Daily Grind
- 25 A Nation at War with Itself
- 26 The Sporting Chimpanzee
- 27 The Passion of Pan
- 28 Into the Light
- 29 The Other Sister, Bonobos
- 30 Sister Species
- Book part
- Index
- Plate Section (PDF Only)
- References
11 - Building a Natural Wonder
Growth, Development, and Life History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 July 2020
- Chimpanzee
- Reviews
- Chimpanzee
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Sister’s Keeper
- 2 Wild Lesson
- 3 A Most Surprising Creature
- 4 Kin
- 5 Scratching Out a Living in an Unforgiving World
- 6 Guts, Glorious Guts, Large Stomach, and Colon
- 7 Thews, Sinews, and Bone
- 8 Arboreal Gathering, Terrestrial Traveling
- 9 Forged in Nature’s Cauldron
- 10 Up from the Protoape
- 11 Building a Natural Wonder
- 12 The Source of Similarity
- 13 Making Your Way in the Great Wild World
- 14 The Grim Reaper in the Forest Primeval
- 15 Powering Life
- 16 Shelter from the Storm
- 17 Meat-Seeking Missiles
- 18 The Mind of the Chimpanzee
- 19 The Brain of the Chimpanzee
- 20 Tired Nature’s Sweet Restorer
- 21 Chimpanzee Thought Transfer
- 22 Ape Implements
- 23 Wisdom of the Ages
- 24 The Daily Grind
- 25 A Nation at War with Itself
- 26 The Sporting Chimpanzee
- 27 The Passion of Pan
- 28 Into the Light
- 29 The Other Sister, Bonobos
- 30 Sister Species
- Book part
- Index
- Plate Section (PDF Only)
- References
Summary
The structural similarity of chimpanzees and humans corresponds so closely that an early work on chimpanzee anatomy found it necessary to repeat the words “as in Man” 182 times in a 97-page work (see Chapter 7). Yet, this tale of similarity has a twist: To the casual observer the many micro-scale similarities between Homo and Pan are overwhelmed by undeniable macro-scale differences. Whether an expert or neophyte, one cannot fail to notice that chimpanzees have longer, thicker body hair, a jutting face, a smaller braincase, long arms – longer the closer one moves to the tips of their extraordinarily long fingers – short legs, and a very unhuman-like nose, a nose that is little more than two holes in the face. Anatomists who emphasize similarities have not overlooked these differences, but they more often drill down to the millimeter- or microscopic-scale, and here neurons, pulmonary alveoli, muscle fibers, tendons, and the arterial networks are nearly identical in chimpanzees and humans.
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- Information
- ChimpanzeeLessons from our Sister Species, pp. 188 - 216Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020