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Koolakamba | |
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The head of the kooloo-kamba Paul Du Chaillu shot in 1858. | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Primates |
Suborder: | Haplorhini |
Infraorder: | Simiiformes |
Family: | Hominidae |
Subfamily: | Homininae |
Hybrid: | Pan sp. × Gorilla sp. |
The Koolakamba or Kooloo-Kamba is a purported hybrid species of chimpanzees and gorillas. This alleged hybrid ape species has been reported in Africa as early as the mid 19th century. No empirical evidence has been found to substantiate the existence of the creature. The Koolakamba was referenced in the mid-19th century in French work by Franquet (1852, as cited by Shea, 1984) and in some descriptive work of Paul Du Chaillu from 1860, 1861, 1867, and 1899, some of which was republished in 1969 (Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa). [1]
Du Chaillu refers to the ape as Koolakamba based upon his description of words used by the indigenous peoples (Nkomi and Bakalai) in the region of the Ovenga River of West Central Africa, modernly Gabon. The people of Goumbi allegedly referred to the ape as "Kooloo" because that is what its unique vocalization, quite unlike the vocalizations of other apes in the region, sounded like to them. "Kamba", according to DuChaillu, is a Commi (Nkomi) word meaning "to speak". [2] [3]
The Koolakamba is believed to be larger, flatter-faced, larger-skulled and more bipedal than a chimp; though, it may also be a mutation. [4] [ better source needed ] According to DuChaillu (1861 and 1869), the physical characteristics described for Koolakamba include a short and broad pelvic structure, large supraorbital ridge, high zygomatic ridges, less prominent "muzzle", dentition in which the upper and lower incisors meet squarely forming a grinding surface, and a larger cranial capacity than that of the common chimpanzee. Much of what DuChaillu records is essentially ethnographic. He includes the indigenous names and lore relevant to the ape, descriptive text, and presumably accurate illustrations, but limited quantitative (mostly anthropometric) data.
Although there has not been a documented sighting of the Koolakamba or proof of its existence in modern times, in 1881 Koppenfelds claimed that it did indeed exist: “I believe it is proved that there are crosses between the male Troglodytes gorilla and the female Troglodytes niger, but for reasons easily understood, there are none in the opposite direction. I have in my possession positive proof of this. This settles all the questions about the gorilla, chimpanzee, Kooloo Kamba,....etc.”
In November 1996, a picture of an unusual ape (taken by Peter Jenkins and Liza Gadsby at the Yaounde Zoo, Cameroon) was featured in the Newsletter of the Internal Primate Protection League (IPPL). This picture showed a seemingly hybrid ape with wider face and a larger skull than that of a chimpanzee and smaller than that of a gorilla. The ape in the picture had features that seemed to belong to both the gorilla and the chimpanzee. [5]
Scientifically, it has not been determined if the Koolakamba is a subspecies of chimpanzee, a gorilla-chimpanzee hybrid, or perhaps simply a product of individual variation. Yerkes reported several "unclassifiable apes" with features intermediate between chimpanzee and gorilla in his 1929 book "A Study of Anthropoid Life." It is believed that these are regional races of chimpanzee classified as separate species by over-enthusiastic scientists.
The chimpanzee, also known simply as chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. The chimpanzee and the closely related bonobo are classified in the genus Pan. Evidence from fossils and DNA sequencing shows that Pan is a sister taxon to the human lineage and is humans' closest living relative. The chimpanzee is covered in coarse black hair, but has a bare face, fingers, toes, palms of the hands, and soles of the feet. It is larger and more robust than the bonobo, weighing 40–70 kg (88–154 lb) for males and 27–50 kg (60–110 lb) for females and standing 120 to 150 cm.
Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus Gorilla is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or five subspecies. The DNA of gorillas is highly similar to that of humans, from 95 to 99% depending on what is included, and they are the next closest living relatives to humans after chimpanzees and bonobos.
Homininae, also called "African hominids" or "African apes", is a subfamily of Hominidae. It includes two tribes, with their extant as well as extinct species: 1) the tribe Hominini ―and 2) the tribe Gorillini (gorillas). Alternatively, the genus Pan is sometimes considered to belong to its own third tribe, Panini. Homininae comprises all hominids that arose after orangutans split from the line of great apes. The Homininae cladogram has three main branches, which lead to gorillas, and to humans and chimpanzees via the tribe Hominini and subtribes Hominina and Panina. There are two living species of Panina and two living species of gorillas, but only one extant human species. Traces of extinct Homo species, including Homo floresiensis have been found with dates as recent as 40,000 years ago. Organisms in this subfamily are described as hominine or hominines.
A primate is a eutherian mammal constituting the taxonomic order Primates. Primates are sister to Dermoptera, together forming the Primatomorpha. It consists of the otherwise extinct plesiadapiformes and its descendents, the lemurs, the haplorhini. With the crown-primates (euprimates) cladistically included in the plesiadapiformes, it becomes a junior synonym for primates, then sometimes referred to as pan-primates.
The genus Pan consists of two extant species: the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Taxonomically, these two ape species are collectively termed panins; however, both species are more commonly referred to collectively using the generalized term chimpanzees, or chimps. Together with humans, gorillas, and orangutans they are part of the family Hominidae. Native to sub-Saharan Africa, chimpanzees and bonobos are currently both found in the Congo jungle, while only the chimpanzee is also found further north in West Africa. Both species are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and in 2017 the Convention on Migratory Species selected the chimpanzee for special protection.
Apes are a clade of Old World simians native to Africa and Southeast Asia, the other being its sister group Cercopithecidae, together forming the catarrhine clade. The New World monkeys diverged earlier from the old world stock of monkeys, by settling across the Atlantic ocean. They are distinguished from other primates by a wider degree of freedom of motion at the shoulder joint as evolved by the influence of brachiation. Apes do not have tails, apparently due to a mutation of the TXBT gene. In traditional and non-scientific use, the term "ape" can include tailless primates taxonomically considered Cercopithecidae, and is thus not equivalent to the scientific taxon Hominoidea. There are two extant branches of the superfamily Hominoidea: the gibbons, or lesser apes; and the hominids, or great apes.
Twycross Zoo is a medium to large zoo near Norton Juxta Twycross, Leicestershire. The zoo has the largest collection of monkeys and apes in the Western World, and in 2006 re-launched itself as "Twycross Zoo – The World Primate Centre".
Paul Belloni Du Chaillu was a French-American traveler, zoologist, and anthropologist. He became famous in the 1860s as the first modern European outsider to confirm the existence of gorillas, and later the Pygmy people of central Africa. He later researched the prehistory of Scandinavia.
The Bili apes or Bondo mystery apes were names given in 2003 in sensational reports in the popular media to a purportedly new species of highly aggressive, giant ape supposedly inhabiting the wetlands and savannah around of the village of Bili in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "The apes nest on the ground like gorillas, but they have a diet and features characteristic of chimpanzees", according to a 2003 National Geographic article.
The humanzee is a hypothetical hybrid of chimpanzee and human. Serious attempts to create such a hybrid were made by Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov in the 1920s, and possibly by researchers in the People's Republic of China in the 1960s, though neither succeeded. The portmanteau word humanzee for a human–chimpanzee hybrid appears to have entered usage in the 1980s.
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The Hominidae, whose members are known as the great apes or hominids, are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo ; Gorilla ; Pan ; and Homo, of which only modern humans remain.
Primate cognition is the study of the intellectual and behavioral skills of non-human primates, particularly in the fields of psychology, behavioral biology, primatology, and anthropology.
The western chimpanzee, or West African chimpanzee, is a Critically Endangered subspecies of the common chimpanzee. It inhabits western Africa, mainly in Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, and Sierra Leone but with populations in surrounding countries.
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Ape Action Africa is a non-profit NGO founded in 1996 dedicated to the conservation of endangered gorillas and chimpanzees, threatened by the bushmeat trade in Central and West Africa. Ape Action Africa manages the rescue and rehabilitation of Great apes across much of Cameroon, with a large sanctuary in the Mefou forest. With more than 300 primates in its care, Ape Action Africa is now one of the largest conservation projects of its kind in Africa. Many of the animals arrive at the sanctuary as orphans, mainly due to the illegal bushmeat trade, which has grown in recent years as a result of deforestation of the Cameroonian jungle.
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