Talk:Common Chimpanzee

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Hmmm. Where did the 4-7 million years come from? Best guesses I'd read (though they were a decade ago) were ~10 million at least. --Robert Merkel

Is there really no reason to differentiate hominids and the apes? I think that humans, and our ancestors, designate a distinct break from the apes. --James

Agreed that chimpanzees are hominids, but putting them in Homo seems questionable: it would require reclassifying all human ancestors back to the human/chimp split as Homo (instead of Australopithecus, etc.). Part of the problem is that we don't yet have a clear family tree for H. sapiens; another part is that few if any fossils of chimpanzee ancestors have been found. --Vicki Rosenzweig

Robert, I can give you three relatively recent references:Jared Diamond (1992) speaks of 6-8 million years; Frans de Waal (1997) proposes a split off at 6 million years; Juan Luis Arsuaga, from the Atapuerca research group (1998) suggests between 4.5 and 7 million years. The gap has been getting smaller in recent years, as you can see. James, are you sure you can say objectively that humans are a distinct break from apes? technologically we've gone a long way of course, but biologically (and classifying species is after all about biology) the differences aren't that great. Vicki, youre absolutely right as to the difficulties involving a reclassification, but I'm not quite sure about the sentence you introduced referring to chimpanzees forming longer-lasting relationships than bonobos. Basically, bonobos use sex in different ways than chimpanzees, and more extensively.

As I said, I'm planning to expand on this article. In any case, I wanted to catch people's attention with my introduction and I think I've managed. -Calypso

Calypso, the sentence about chimpanzee and bonobo relationships wasn't my diff, and someone else will have to explain it. --Vicki Rosenzweig

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Should humans be placed on the same branch with chimpanzees? The 99.4% figure for chimps expounded again. Usedbook 23:35 20 May 2003 (UTC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3042781.stm

It is still too controversial for us to say conclusively one way or the other (however my own POV is that chimps and humans are in the same genus). I would be more convinced if the 99.4% figure applied to all genes and not just the "functionally significant" very very small subset (which was chosen by the researchers, BTW, which raises the question of selection bias - however unintended). But the new data should be part of this article (properly framed per NPOV of course). --mav

I think it's a bunch of hooey, designed to get press attention. % gene identity is a meaningless statistic for measuring identity. For all we know a single gene mutation might be enough to cause speciation, and a half-dozen might result in a vastly different animal. I say, we should keep them out of genus Homo, because in a few weeks this 99.4% stuff will all be forgotten. Graft 23:48 20 May 2003 (UTC)

It really depends on if you are a lumper or divider. For example the dingo is considered to be a separate species from the common dog and yet wild bred dog-dingo hybrids have no noticeable reduction in reproductive success (as would be expected in a hybrid between even different subspecies within the same species). Then there are different strains of bacteria within the same species that have more genetic variation between them than do whales and horses. Oh I almost forgot hybrid plants with two, three or more sets of chromosomes from different species of plants (which causes a huge headache when trying to make a taxobox for the damn plant!). The point is that our classification of organisms is really an arbitrary method we use to categorize and try to make sense of the word. Therefore the dividing lines are somewhat fluid and can change over time (not that I'm arguing for a change in what we say in this and the homo article; I'm just saying that the most recent findings are interesting and could lead to something - or not). --mav

Don't dogs and wolves have that same reproductive success? Species names are pretty POV, aren't they? -- Zoe

Like I said the distinctions are often arbitrary and reflect a good deal of historical bias (wolves=bad, dogs=good ergo wolves and dogs must be different species!). However I'm only aware of dogs and dingos producing reproductively whole young under natural breeding conditions. I'm not aware of dog-wolf hybrids forming spontaneously in the wild (but they are bred by people and are just as furtile and have just as good reproductive success as any dog or wolf). And yet we still consider then to be separate species. --mav

Well, for species there are criteria that say what is one species and what is two species. Even though it may in some cases be difficult to apply those criteria in practice. But there are no such criteria for genera, apart from the fact that they should be monophyletic. How large or small a genus should be is completely a matter of convention and convenience. So it will really just cause a lot of confusion if people revise genera without a clear necessity. --Chl 16:20, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Mystery Ape 2 Inter-Tribal Violence 3 Latin name citation 4 Chimpanzee Attacks 5 Photo 6 Chimpanzee Genome spin-off 7 Capitalization of animal species

[edit] Mystery Ape

What about the new mystery ape that has recently been photographed, captured and had its mitochondrial DNA analyzed? Seems to be a third species of chimp; a few people have suggested it may be descended from a weird Gorilla-chimp hybrid. It seems to be a previously unknown species of chimp. This topic should be discussed in our articles on Ape, Chimpanzee and Cryptozoology. (Of course, the text should not be identical in each article.) RK 04:20, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The Bondo Mystery Ape

CNN article: Seeking answers to big 'mystery ape'

Leaky Foundation intro on Elusive African Apes: Giant Chimps or New Species?

National Geographic news: Elusive African Apes: Giant Chimps or New Species?

Actually, those mitochondrial DNA analyses indicated that it's not a new species or subspecies, but falls into P. t. schweinfurthii. See New Scientist, 9 Oct 2004. --Chl 16:20, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have put some information on ape. Indeed, if it is a hybrid chimp and gorilla, it means that all great apes must be in the same genus! - UtherSRG 16:34, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Inter-Tribal Violence

Can we get a para.or two on violence between tribes of (Pan troglodytes) chimps? Thanks. -- orthogonal 14:56, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Latin name citation

"binomial name = Pan troglodytes Blumenbach 1799"
Surely this is wrong? The species was first described by Linnaeus, as Homo troglodytes, in 1758. So the citation should be Pan troglodytes (Linnaeus, 1758). Blumenbach was just the revising author who changed the genus, not the person who made the first description of the species. - MPF 16:08, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It appears that this is one of the (very) few instances where either the authority process isn't follow, or where Linnaeus is discounted. Google shows well-known websites stating Blumenbach as the authority for P. troglodytes, not Linnaeus. Perhaps this is because what Linnaeus called Homo troglodytes was done without a type specimen? Perhaps Linnaeus meant some proto-human? But that can't be, as Linnaeus was pre-Darwin. - UtherSRG 18:46, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

Certainly Linnaeus lacked a type specimen for Homo troglodytes. He was relying on second- or third-hand accounts, so it isn't at all clear to what animal this name refers to. As Huxley says in his essay Man's Place in Nature,

"Linnaeus knew nothing, of his own observation, of the man-like Apes of either Africa or Asia".

So Linnaeus name is a nomen nudum and not available for scientific use. Blumenbach was the first to publish the name together with a description, so he gets the credit. Gdr 05:24:43, 2005-07-31 (UTC) P.S. However, we have the date wrong. Bluemnbach's description of the chimpanzee appeared in De Generis Humani Varietate Nativa, 1775. I will fix.

[edit] Chimpanzee Attacks

I added the small bit about chimps occasionally attacking and eating human infants. I just saw it on national geographic. I couldnt't see a reason why it couldn't be in the article. I'll try and find some more to sources back that up. Irresponsible Irresponsible 15:22, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I first thought this was a joke, so I Googled it. You are correct. - UtherSRG 18:35, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Photo

Okay, while I am NOT a fan of Duh-bya Bush, I think we need to find a photo of an ACTUAL chimp for this article. No monkeying around (har har).

[edit] Chimpanzee Genome spin-off

I'd like to suggest a spin-off of the section about the chimp genome. It's fascinating material, but it seems to have taken over the article, and it's almost as much about humans as it is about chimpanzees. Tverbeek 12:47, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

There is a human genome article, so there is no reason there could not be a chimpanzee genome article. --JWSchmidt 13:19, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization of animal species

Animal species are not normally capitalized. This article should be moved to common chimpanzee (and if that page did not have history that prevented me, I would have boldly moved it myself.) // habj 10:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

And you would have been wrong to do so. This article is part of the Primates Wikiproject and the rule here is to capitalize species common names. I have reverted your changes. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:10, 6 October 2006 (UTC)