Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)
Chimpanzees are probably the most intelligent non-human animal. They're very similar to humans both in appearance and in their social behaviour.
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Wild at heart
Chimp tricks
The Life of Mammals
David Attenborough learns that you can't teach an old ape new tricks.
Chimps on the hunt 
Tool use
Termite-catching chimps
Chimp Week
Chimpanzees head for the canopy to snatch flying termites from the air.
Earth News
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Ape gestures 'show human links'
Researchers in the US say they have firm evidence that apes communicate using gestures - shedding light on the development of human language.
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African chimps decline 'alarming'
The population of the endangered West African chimpanzees in Ivory Coast has fallen by about 90% in less than 20 years, a study has suggested.
More news stories
About the Chimpanzee
The Common Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), also known as the Robust Chimpanzee, is a great ape. The name troglodytes, Greek for 'cave-dweller', was coined by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in his Handbuch der Naturgeschichte (Handbook of Natural History) published in 1779. Colloquially, it is often called the chimpanzee (or simply 'chimp'), though technically this term refers to both species in the genus Pan: the Common Chimpanzee and the closely-related Bonobo, or Pygmy Chimpanzee.
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The Chimpanzee is
- Arboreal
- Co-operative breeder
- Hierarchical
- Polygynandrous
- Seed disperser
- Social
- Territorial
- Viviparous
Adaptation data provided by Animal Diversity Web
Where can I see them?
This region contains the following habitats:
Species range provided by WWF's Wildfinder
Conservation Status
The Chimpanzee is Endangered (IUCN 3.1)
- EX - Extinct
- EW
- CR - Threatened
- EN - Threatened
- VU - Threatened
- NT
- LC - Least concern
Population trend: Decreasing
Year assessed: 2008
Elsewhere on the web
- Chimpanzee - Pan troglodytes (arkive.org)
- Pan troglodytes (animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu)
- Brain Museum: comparing mammal brains (brainmuseum.org)
- University of Wisconsin primate research centre: fact file (pin.primate.wisc.edu)
- IUCN Red List information (iucnredlist.org)
- Jane Goodall Institute: chimpanzee conservation and research (janegoodall.org.uk)
- Common Chimpanzee (wikipedia.org)
Site links
BBC links
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