Great apes or hominoids are a superfamily that includes the most highly developed representatives of the order of primates. It also includes man and all his ancestors, but they are included in separate family hominids will not be discussed in detail in this article.

What distinguishes an ape from a human? First of all, some features of the body structure:

The human spine bends forward and backward.

The facial part of the ape's skull is larger than the brain.

The relative and even absolute volume of the brain is significantly less than that of humans.

The area of ​​the cerebral cortex is also smaller, and the frontal and temporal lobes are also less developed.

Apes do not have a chin.

The chest is round and convex, while in humans it is flat.

The monkey's fangs are enlarged and protrude.

The pelvis is narrower than that of a human.

Since a person is erect, his sacrum is more powerful, since the center of gravity is transferred to it.

The monkey has more long body and hands.

The legs, on the contrary, are shorter and weaker.

Monkeys have a flat grasping foot with the big toe opposed to the others. In humans it is curved, but thumb located parallel to others.

A person has practically no fur.

In addition, there are a number of differences in thinking and activity. A person can think abstractly and communicate using speech. He has consciousness, is capable of summarizing information and drawing up complex logical chains.

Signs of great apes:

large powerful body (much bigger size than other monkeys);

absence of a tail;

lack of cheek pouches

absence of ischial calluses.

Hominoids are also distinguished by their way of moving through trees. They do not run along them on all fours, like other representatives of the primate order, but grab branches with their hands.

Skeleton of apes also has a specific structure. The skull is located in front of the spine. Moreover, it has an elongated front part.

The jaws are strong, powerful, massive and adapted for gnawing solid plant food. The arms are noticeably longer than the legs. The foot is grasping, with the big toe set to the side (like on a human hand).

Great apes include, orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees. The first are separated into a separate family, and the remaining three are combined into one - pongidae. Let's take a closer look at each of them.

The gibbon family consists of four genera. All of them live in Asia: India, China, Indonesia, on the islands of Java and Kalimantan. Their color is usually gray, brown or black.

Their sizes are relatively small for anthropoid apes: the body length of the largest representatives reaches ninety centimeters, weight - thirteen kilograms.

Lifestyle - daytime. They live mainly in trees. They move uncertainly on the ground, mostly on their hind legs, only occasionally leaning on their front legs. However, they go down quite rarely. The basis of nutrition is plant food - fruits and leaves of fruit trees. They may also eat insects and bird eggs.

Pictured is a gibbon ape

Gorilla is very great ape. This is the largest representative of the family. The height of a male can reach two meters, and weight – two hundred and fifty kilograms.

These are massive, muscular, incredibly strong and resilient monkeys. The coat color is usually black; older males may have a silver-gray back.

They live in African forests and mountains. They prefer to be on the ground, on which they walk mainly on four legs, only occasionally rising to their feet. The diet is plant-based and includes leaves, grass, fruits and nuts.

Quite peaceful, they show aggression towards other animals only in self-defense. Intraspecific conflicts occur, for the most part, between adult males over females. However, they are usually resolved by demonstrating threatening behavior, rarely even leading to fights, much less murder.

Pictured is a gorilla monkey

Orangutans are the rarest modern apes . Currently, they live mainly in Sumatra, although previously they were distributed throughout almost all of Asia.

These are the largest of the monkeys, living mainly in trees. Their height can reach one and a half meters, and their weight can reach one hundred kilograms. The coat is long, wavy, and can be of various shades of red.

They live almost entirely in trees, not even coming down to drink. For this purpose they usually use rainwater, which accumulates in the leaves.

To spend the night, they make nests in the branches, and build a new home every day. They live alone, forming pairs only during the breeding season.

Both modern looking, Sumatran and Climantan, are on the verge of extinction.

In the photo there is an orangutan monkey

Chimpanzees are the smartest primates, apes. They are also the closest relatives of humans in the animal world. There are two types: ordinary and dwarf, also called. Dimensions even normal looking not too big. The coat color is usually black.

Unlike other hominoids, with the exception of humans, chimpanzees are omnivores. In addition to plant foods, they also eat animals, obtaining them by hunting. Quite aggressive. Conflicts often arise between individuals, leading to fights and death.

They live in groups, the average number of which is ten to fifteen individuals. This is a real complex society with a clear structure and hierarchy. Common habitats are forests near water. Distribution: Western and central part of the African continent.

Pictured is a chimpanzee monkey

Ancestors of great apes very interesting and varied. In general, there are much more fossil species in this superfamily than living ones. The first of them appeared in Africa almost ten million years ago. Their further history is very closely connected with this continent.

It is believed that the line leading to humans separated from the rest of the hominoids about five million years ago. One of the likely candidates for the role of the first ancestor of the genus Homo is considered Australopithecus - great ape, who lived more than four million years ago.

These creatures contain both archaic characteristics and more progressive, already human ones. However, there are much more of the former, which does not allow Australopithecines to be classified directly as humans. There is also an opinion that this is a side, dead-end branch of evolution that did not lead to the emergence of more developed forms of primates, including humans.

But the statement that another interesting human ancestor, Sinanthropus - great ape, is already fundamentally wrong. However, the statement that he is the ancestor of man is not entirely correct, since this species already clearly belongs to the genus of humans.

They already had developed speech, language and their own, albeit primitive, culture. It is very likely that Sinanthropus was the last ancestor of modern homo sapiens. However, the possibility is not excluded that he, like Australopithecus, is the crown of a side branch of development.

The most developed, most intelligent monkeys are anthropoids. That’s how the word begs to be called – humanoid. And all because they have a lot in common with our species. We can talk about apes a lot, for a long time and with passion, simply because they are really close to our species. But first things first.

There are 4 types of these animals:

• gorillas,
• orangutans,
• chimpanzee,
• bonobos (or pygmy chimpanzees).

Bonobos and chimpanzees are very similar to each other, but the remaining two species are not at all similar to each other or to chimpanzees. However, all great apes There are many similarities, for example:

• they have no tail,
• similar structure of the hands of the upper limbs and by human hands,
• the volume of the brain is very large (at the same time, its surface is full of grooves and convolutions, and this indicates high level intelligence of these animals)
• there are 4 blood types,
• In medicine, bonobo blood is used for transfusion to a person with a suitable blood type.

All these facts indicate the “blood” relationship of these creatures with people.

Both species of gorillas and chimpanzees live in Africa, and this continent, as you know, is considered the cradle of all humanity. The orangutan, according to scientists, our most genetically distant relative among the great apes, lives in Asia.

common chimpanzee

Chimpanzee social life

Chimpanzees usually live in groups, with an average of 15-20 individuals. The group, which is headed by one male leader, also includes females and males of all ages. Groups of chimpanzees occupy territories, which the males themselves protect from incursions by neighbors.

In places where there is enough food for a group to live comfortably, chimpanzees lead a sedentary lifestyle. However, if there is not enough food for the entire group, then they wander over fairly long distances in search of food. It happens that the territories of residence of several groups overlap. In this case, they unite for some time. It is interesting that in all conflicts the advantage goes to the group that contains more males and which, therefore, turns out to be stronger. Chimpanzees do not create permanent families. This means that any adult male has the right to freely choose his next girlfriend from among the adult females, both from his own group and from the group that has joined.

After an 8-month gestation period, a female chimpanzee gives birth to one absolutely helpless baby. Up to a year of life, the female carries the baby on her stomach, after which the baby independently transfers to her back. For as long as 9-9.5 years, the female and the cub are practically inseparable. His mother teaches him everything she can do, shows him the world and other group members. There are cases when teenagers are sent to their " kindergarten" there they frolic with peers under the supervision of several adults, usually females. When the baby turns 13 years old, the chimpanzee enters adulthood and begins to be considered independent members of the pack. At the same time, young males begin to fight for leadership,

Chimpanzees are quite aggressive animals. Conflicts often occur in the group, which escalate into even bloody fights, which often end fatal. Apes are able to establish relationships with each other through a wide range of facial expressions, gestures and sounds with which they convey their approval. These animals express friendly feelings through picking each other's fur.

Chimpanzees get their food in the trees and on the ground, both here and there, feeling in their place. Their food includes:

• plant food,
• insects,
• small living creatures.

In addition, hungry chimpanzees as a whole group can go out hunting and capture, for example, a gazelle for shared food.

Skillful hands and a smart head

Chimpanzees are extremely smart, they are able to use tools, deliberately selecting the most convenient tool. They are even capable of improving it. For example, to climb into an anthill, an ape uses a twig: it selects a twig of appropriate size and optimizes it by tearing off the leaves on it. Or, for example, they use a stick to knock down a tall growing fruit. Or to hit an opponent with it during a fight.

To break a nut, the monkey places it on a flat stone specially selected for this purpose, and uses another sharp stone to break the shell.

To quench thirst, chimpanzees use large leaf and use it as a ladle. Or he makes a sponge from a pre-chewed leaf, dips it in a stream and squeezes the water into his mouth.

When hunting, great apes can stone a victim to death; a hail of cobblestones will await a predator, for example, a leopard, who dares to hunt these animals.

In order not to get wet when crossing a pond, chimpanzees are able to build a bridge from sticks, and they will use wide leaves as an umbrella, fly swatter, fan and as toilet paper.

Gorilla

Good giants or monsters?

It’s easy to imagine the feelings of the person who first saw a gorilla in front of him - a humanoid giant, frightening aliens with menacing screams, beating his chest with his fists, breaking and uprooting young trees. Such encounters with forest monsters gave birth to horror stories and tales about the fiends of hell, whose superhuman strength carries mortal danger if not for the human race, then for its psyche.

Unfortunately, this is not an exaggeration. Such legends, which pushed the public to the fact that these humanoid creatures began to be treated too incorrectly, at one time caused an almost uncontrolled, panicky extermination of gorillas. The species was threatened with complete extinction if it were not for the work and efforts of scientists who took under their protection these giants, about whom in those years people knew almost nothing at all.

As it turned out, it seemed these creepy monsters- the most peaceful herbivores who eat only plant foods. Besides they are almost completely non-aggressive, but demonstrate their strength and, even more so, use it only when there is real danger and if someone comes to their territory.

Moreover, to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, gorillas try to scare off offenders, it doesn’t matter whether it’s another male, a ruler of another species, or a human. Then all possible means of intimidation come into play:

• screams,
• pounding your chest with your fists,
• breaking down trees, etc.

Features of the life of a gorilla

Gorillas, like chimpanzees, live in small groups, but their numbers are usually smaller - 5-10 individuals. Among them there is usually the head of the group - the eldest male, several females with cubs of different ages and 1-2 young males. The leader is easy to recognize: It has silver-gray fur on its back.

By the age of 14, the male gorilla becomes sexually mature, and instead of black fur, a light stripe appears on his back.

An already mature male is enormous: he is 180 cm tall and sometimes weighs 300 kg. The one of the silver-backed males who turns out to be the eldest becomes the leader of the group. The care of all family members is entrusted to his powerful shoulders.

The main male in the group gives signals to wake up at sunrise and to sleep at sunset, he himself chooses the path in the thickets along which the rest of the group will go in search of food, regulates order and peace in the group. He also protects all his people from the impending dangers that tropical forest a huge variety.

The younger generation in the group is raised by their own mothers. However, if the baby suddenly becomes orphaned, then it is the leader of the pack who takes them under his wing. He will carry them on his back, sleep next to them and make sure that their games are not dangerous.

When protecting orphan cubs, the leader may even fight with a leopard or even with armed people.

Often the capture of a baby gorilla entails not only the death of its mother, but also the death of the leader of the group. The remaining members of the group, deprived of protection and care, young animals and helpless females also stand on the edge of the abyss if one of the single males does not take responsibility for the orphaned family.

Orangutans

Orangutan: features of life

"Orangutan" is translated from Malay as "forest man". This name refers to large apes that live in the jungles of the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan. Orangutans are from amazing creatures on earth. They differ in many ways from other apes.

Orangutans lead wood image life. Even though their weight is quite significant, 65-100 kg, they climb trees remarkably well even at a height of 15-20 m. They prefer not to go down to the ground.

Of course, due to the weight of their body, they cannot jump from branch to branch, but at the same time they are able to confidently and quickly climb trees.

Orangutans eat almost around the clock, eating

• fruit,
• foliage,
• bird eggs,
• chicks.

In the evenings, orangutans build their homes, and each one has his own place, where they settle down for the night. They sleep holding a branch with one of their paws so as not to fall down in their sleep.

Every night, orangutans settle down in a new place, for which they again build a “bed” for themselves. These animals practically do not form groups, preferring a solitary life or life in pairs (mother - cubs, female - male), although there are cases when a pair of adults and several cubs different ages They practically form a family.

The female of these animals gives birth to 1 cub. His mother takes care of him for about 7 years, until he is old enough to live independently.

Until the age of 3, a baby orangutan feeds only on its mother’s milk, and only after this period does the mother begin to give it solid food. She chews the leaves for him, thus making a vegetable puree for him.

She prepares the baby for adult life, teaching him to climb trees correctly and build a place to sleep. Baby orangutans are very playful and affectionate, and they perceive the entire process of education and training as an entertaining game.

Orangutans are very savvy animals. In captivity, they learn to use tools and are even able to make them themselves. But in conditions of free life, these apes rarely use their abilities: the incessant search for food does not give them time to develop their natural intelligence.

Bonobos

The bonobo, or pygmy chimpanzee, is our closest relative

About the existence of our own close relative– bonobos – few people know. Although the set of genes in the dwarf chimpanzee coincides with the set of human genes by as much as 98%! They are also very close to us in the basics of social-emotional behavior.

They live in Central Africa, in the northeast and northwest of Congo. They never leave tree branches and move on the ground very rarely.

Characteristic behavioral features of this species are joint hunting.. They can wage war among themselves, then the presence of power politics is revealed.

Bonobos have no sign language, so characteristic of other creatures. They give each other vocal signals and they are very different from the signals of the second type of chimpanzee.

The bonobo's voice consists of high, harsh and barking sounds. For hunting they use various primitive objects: stones, sticks. In captivity, their intellect gets the opportunity to grow and express itself. There, they become real masters in mastering objects and inventing new ones.

Bonobos do not have a leader like other primates. Distinctive and characteristic feature pygmy chimpanzees is also what at the head of their group or the whole community is a female.

Females stay in groups. They also include cubs and juveniles up to 6 years of age. The males stay away, but not nearby.

It is interesting that almost all aggressive outbursts in bonobos are replaced by elements of mating behavior.

The fact that females dominate among them was revealed by scientists in an experiment when combined with groups of monkeys of both species. In bonobo groups, females are the first to eat. If the male does not agree, then the females join forces and expel the male. Fights never occur during eating, but mating always occurs just before eating.

Conclusion

As many wise books claim, animals are our smaller brothers. And we can say with confidence that apes are our brothers - our neighbors.

The order 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 - including small ones pygmy marmosets(up to 10cm in length), and huge gorillas (up to 180cm in length) weighing about 250kg.

General characteristics of the Squad

Primates inhabit tropical zones: prefer to live in dense thickets. Other species of arboreal animals climb trees using sharp claws. But primates do this using long fingers that wrap around a branch.

The front and hind limbs are five-fingered, the first finger, like a human’s, is opposed to the rest. This is how the animals securely grab onto the branches and stay on them. There are no claws on the fingers, but flat nails grow. Primates use their limbs not only for moving, but also for grasping food, cleaning and combing hair.

Signs of the primate order:

• Binocular vision;
• limbs with five fingers;
• the body is densely covered with hair;
• instead of claws, nails are developed;
• the first finger is opposed to the others;
• poor development of 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 apes were divided into primates and woolly wings.

After 5 million years, two new groups formed: dry-nosed and wet-nosed primates. Then the tarsiforms, apes, and 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 ate insects. From them came orangutans, gibbons, and dryopithecus. The latter are an extinct group of primates that evolved into other species: chimpanzees, gorilla, humans.

The opinion of scientists that man descended from dryopitens is based on many similarities in structure and appearance. Upright walking - main sign, who first separated humans from primates during evolution.

Similarities between humans and primates
Similarities	Characteristic
Appearance	Large size, long limbs with the same structure plan (five-fingered, the first finger is opposed to the rest), similar shape of the outer ear, nose, facial muscles, nail plates
Internal skeleton	12-13 pairs of ribs, similar sections, same bone structure
Blood	One cellular composition, four blood groups
Chromosome set	Number of chromosomes from 46 to 48, similar shape and structure
Metabolic processes	Dependence on enzyme systems, hormones, identical mechanisms of breakdown of nutrients
Diseases	Tuberculosis, diphtheria, measles, polio have the same course

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 along branches.

Monkeys are able to distinguish the shape of surrounding objects and their color; from a distance, they see ripe fruits and edible insects. The olfactory receptors do not distinguish odors well, and the fingers, palms and feet, devoid of hair, are responsible for the sense of touch.

Lifestyle

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

They lead an active lifestyle during the daytime. They unite in herds with a leader - the strongest male. Everyone obeys him and follows his instructions, which are sent through facial expressions, gestures, and sounds.

Habitats

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

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

Squad classification

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

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

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

1. Prosimons 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 monkeys, marmosets, gibbons, and apes.

Apes include the African gorilla, chimpanzees, and orangutans. Apes climb trees during the day in search of food, and at night they settle in nests made of twigs. They skillfully and quickly move on their hind limbs, maintaining balance using the back of the hand, which rests on the ground. Apes lack a tail.

Representatives of the family have a well-developed brain, which determines their behavior. They are endowed with excellent memory and intelligence. Apes can make primitive tools from available materials. The chimpanzee uses a branch to remove insects from narrow gorges and uses straws as toothpicks. Monkeys use large knots and piles of earth as weapons.

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

Humans, as a representative of primates, are also characterized by: a five-fingered grasping limb, a tactile pattern, differentiation of teeth, significant development of sensory systems, low fertility, and more. That is why humans are classified as members of the ape family. Distinctive feature people is the consciousness that arose in connection with work activity.

Introduction

Apes, a group of higher narrow-nosed monkeys, the most highly developed among the Old World monkeys; includes gibbons, orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas. Together with humans, apes make up the superfamily Hominoidea, which is combined with the superfamily Apes into the section Old World monkeys. ape anatomical

Apes are also called anthropoids, although modern classifications this term is usually used to refer to the suborder great apes, which includes both the higher (anthropoid) and lower (marmoset and capuchin) monkeys of the Old and New Worlds.

Purpose of the work: to characterize the family of great apes.

Job objectives:

• - give general characteristics family of great apes;
• - consider individual representatives of the family: morphology, lifestyle;
• - consider the similarities and differences between the family of anthropoids with humans and apes.

General characteristics of the Ape family

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 tropical forests Fayyum (Egypt), which gave rise to pliopithecus, gibbon and dryopithecine. The Miocene saw a dramatic increase in the number and diversity of ape species. This was the heyday of Dryopithecus and other hominoids, which began to widely spread from Africa to Europe and Asia about 20-16 million years ago. Among the Asian hominoids were Sivapithecus - the ancestors of orangutans, whose line separated about 16-13 million years ago. According to molecular biology, the separation of chimpanzees and gorillas from a common trunk with humans most likely occurred 8-6 million years ago.

Anthropomorphic or great apes constitute 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. They have the same number of teeth as humans, and just like humans, they lack a tail. Mentally, they are more gifted than other monkeys, and the chimpanzee especially stands out in this regard.

In 1957, the great ape bonobo was identified as a special genus - a form that until then was considered only a dwarf variety of chimpanzees.

All great apes live in forests, climb trees easily, and are very imperfectly adapted for moving on land. Unlike true quadrupeds and bipedal humans, 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 tenacious upper limbs are significantly elongated in length, especially in the most skilled tree climbers - gibbons and orangutans .

When walking, great 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 his Long hands, with which it either grabs tree branches or rests on the ground with the back of its bent fingers, thereby partially unloading the lower limbs. Smaller gibbons, when descending from trees and walking across open ground, move on their hind legs, and with their unusually long arms they balance like a person walking on a narrow pole.

Thus, apes do not have the upright gait of humans, but they also do not walk on all fours in the manner that most other mammals do. Therefore, in their skeleton we find a combination of some features of a bipedal person with animal characteristics of four-legged mammals. Due to the elevated position of the body, the pelvis in apes is closer in shape to that of a human, where it truly lives up to its name and supports the abdominal innards from below. In four-legged animals, the pelvis does not have to perform such a task, and its shape is different there - this is easy to see on the skeleton of a cat, dog and other four-legged mammals, including monkeys. The tail of apes is underdeveloped, and its skeleton is represented in them, as in humans, only by a small rudiment - the coccygeal bone, which is closely fused to the pelvis.

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

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

All modern anthropoids are inhabitants of tropical forests, but their adaptability to life among arboreal vegetation is not expressed to the same degree. Gibbons are natural tree climbers. Orangutans also constantly stay in the trees; there they make their nests, and their adaptability to climbing is clearly expressed in the structure of their long arms, the hands of which, with four long fingers and a shortened thumb, have a characteristic monkey shape, allowing them to cling tightly to branches and branches of trees.

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

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 humans, the volume of the brain is very large, and its surface is dotted with grooves and convolutions, which indicates high intelligence these animals. 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 humans.

Question 4. Modern apes

Large modern apes belong to the pongidae family. These animals are of particular interest because a number of morphophysiological, cytological and behavioral characteristics bring them closer to humans.

Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, great apes- 24. It turns out (geneticists are increasingly inclined to this), the second pair of human chromosomes was formed from the fusion of pairs of other chromosomes of ancestral anthropoids.

In 1980, a rigorous scientific publication with the following title appeared in the journal Science (“Science”): “Striking resemblance of high-resolution striped human and chimpanzee chromosomes. The authors of the article are cytogeneticists from the University of Minneapolis (USA) J. Younis, J. Sawyer and K. Dunham. By applying latest methods coloring of chromosomes at different stages of cell division of two higher primates, the authors observed up to 1200 bands for each karyotype (previously a maximum of 300-500 bands could be seen) and were convinced that the striation of the carrier chromosomes hereditary information- in humans and chimpanzees it is almost identical.

After such a great similarity in chromosomes (DNA), no one can be surprised by the “striking similarity of blood proteins and tissues of humans and monkeys - after all, they, proteins, receive a “program” from parental substances that encode them, so close, as we have seen, those. from genes, from DNA.

The great apes and gibbons diverged 10 million years ago, while the common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas lived only 6 or at most 8 million years ago.

Opponents of this theory argued that it was not testable, while supporters argued that the data obtained using molecular clocks corresponded to prehistoric dates that could be verified using other means. Fossils found later confirmed our recent ancestors among fossil apes.

Question 5. Great apes

The extinct dryopithecines and pongines undoubtedly included the ancestors of humans and modern great apes - those large, hairy, intelligent inhabitants of the tropical forests of Africa and South-East Asia. Fossil data on the ancestors of great apes is sparse, except for finds that link the orangutan to the group of fossil apes that included Ramapithecus. But biological research has proven that great apes and humans had a recent common ancestor.

Modern apes include the genera:

1. Pongo, an orangutan, has shaggy reddish fur, long arms, relatively short legs, short thumbs and toes, large molars with low crowns.

2. Pan, a chimpanzee, has long, shaggy black fur, arms longer than legs, a bare face with large supraorbital ridges, large prominent ears, a flat nose and movable lips.

3. Gorilla, the gorilla is the largest living ape. Males are twice the size of females, reaching a height of 6 feet (1.8 m) and weighing 397 pounds (180 kg).

Question 6. Social behavior of anthropoids

The communities of all animals leading a group lifestyle are by no means a random association of individuals. They have a very specific social structure, which is supported by special behavioral mechanisms. In a group, as a rule, there is a more or less pronounced hierarchy of individuals (linear or more complex); group members communicate with each other using various communicative signals, a special “language”, which determines the maintenance of internal structure and coordinated and purposeful group behavior. One type or another social organization associated, first of all, with the conditions of existence and prehistory of the species. Many believe that the intragroup behavior of primates and the structure of their communities are much more to a greater extent determined by phylogenetic factors rather than environmental ones.

The question of the relative roles of ecological and phylogenetic determinants of community structure plays an important role in the selection of a particular primate species as a model whose study can lead to a deeper understanding of the structure of early human society. It is certainly necessary to take both factors into account.

Experimental studies of the behavior of great apes have shown a high ability to learn, form complex associative connections, extrapolate and generalize previous experience, which indicates a high level of analytical and synthetic activity of the brain. Speech and tool activity have always been considered the fundamental differences between humans and animals. Recent experiments on teaching sign language to apes (which is used by deaf-mute people) have shown that they not only quite successfully learn it, but also try to pass on their “language experience” to their cubs and relatives.