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Chimpanzee - PAN TROGLODYTES

Endangered

Class: Animals with Milk Glands (Mammalia)
Subclass: True Mammals (Eutheria)
Order: First Order Mammals (Primatea)
Family: Pongidae.

The word "Chimpanzee": "Chimpanzee" is a native west African name for the animal.

Location: A relatively small area in central Africa.

Habitat: Terrestrial and arboreal. Varied, from the edge of the savanna to the forest, and also in secondary and semideciduous forests.

Description: The color of the coat and face varies somewhat depending on age, sex, and environment of the individual. Some old males are silver-gray with an almost totally black face, but members of this species are typically blackish brown. The ears are large and, as in all apes, bare, and they are tailless. The standing height of a full-grown chimpanzee can be up to four feet, weighing about 110 pounds, with females slightly smaller.

Behavior: This is both a tree-dwelling and a terrestrial animal, and it moves with equal ease in both environments swinging from branch to branch in the trees, or knuckle-walking on the ground. At night it sleeps in large nests built in trees. It lives in groups that are not strictly organized, and can number up to 40 individuals, but the basic relationship is between the mother and her offspring, which remain with her for many years. The chimpanzee is one of the most communicative animals and has a complex repertoire of gestures and vocal sounds. It is a fruit-eater, but has been observed in Tanzania to prey on the colobus monkeys and even antelopes. Extremely intelligent, the chimp can shape and use twig tools to obtain termites from termite mounds.

Reproduction: The gestation period lasts about 236 days.

Note: A other closely related species, the bonobo of the Congo Basin, is smaller, much darker, and mostly arboreal.