Cheeky Pankun (Cute Killers)

We now return to

THE CUTE KILLERS

Subject 2. Chimpanzee

Myth: Being our closest living relatives, they are very intelligent and friendly. Just like us.
Reality: You wouldn't want one of them as your roommate.

Chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes, shares up to 99% of the human DNA making it our closest living relatives. In many popular culture, we are shown to have evolved from chimpanzees. This is actually on conceptual mistake.

According to Darwin's theory of evolution, we might have evolved from a common ancestor at one point of time, thus making us 'relatives' not 'precedessors'.

Nevertheless, Chimps are similar to us in many aspect. They are also believed to be extremely intelligent as observed from their ability to solve problems. Even in the wild, these animals are observed to use tools. On many instances, they are known to use heavy logs as weapons and small twigs to channel termites to their mouths.

It is not suprising that popular culture often portray Chimps as cheeky sidekicks or clowns. Recently, Pankun the genius chimp (abover left) has the painting a good image of his species as highly inquisitve and friendly.Remember chim-chim from Speed Racer? Sadly, this picture cannot be further from the truth.

The truth is... these animals would happily beat the living shit out of you and laugh while doing it.



Just like many other socal animals, Chimps live in a heirachial family group led by a single alpha male. In these groups, fight for dominance can get very messy. With the strength of 3-5 human males, chimp fights are certainly a good spectacle.
Chimps are also know to be highly territorial creatures, killing intruding chimps from other families and even consuming their flesh at times.

Actually, Chimps are known to consume more flesh than any other members of the greater apes (which includes, the gorillas, orangutans and the bonobos). Chimps are known to conduct treetop hunts, going after small monkeys for their flesh. Just like us, meat is not a dietary requirement. But it tastes good.

Another random fact about chimps is that their bodies are too dense to swim. They sink and they sink fast. So they avoid water at all cost.

Having watched captive chimps for close to year now, I can be certain that these animals are not as cute as the media makes them out to be. I once happened to chance upon a fight between the alpha male and a teenager after the teenage male took a bite before him. My stereotype of these guys were shattered immediately.