The chimpanzee, also simply known as the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close relative the bonobo was more commonly known as the pygmy chimpanzee, this species was often called the common chimpanzee or the robust chimpanzee. The chimpanzee and the bonobo are the only species in the genus Pan. Evidence from fossils and DNA sequencing shows that Pan is a sister taxon to the human lineage and is thus humans' closest living relative.
Dame Jane Morris Goodall, formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English zoologist, primatologist and anthropologist. She is considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, after 60 years' studying the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees. Goodall first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania to observe its chimpanzees in 1960.
The genus Pan consists of two extant species: the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Taxonomically, these two ape species are collectively termed panins. The two species were formerly collectively called "chimpanzees" or "chimps"; if bonobos were recognized as a separate group at all, they were referred to as "pygmy" or "gracile chimpanzees". 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.
Neam "Nim" Chimpsky was a chimpanzee used in a study to determine whether chimps could learn a human language, American Sign Language (ASL). The project was led by Herbert S. Terrace of Columbia University with linguistic analysis by psycholinguist Thomas Bever. Chimpsky was named as a pun on linguist Noam Chomsky, who posited that humans are "wired" to develop language.
Great ape personhood is a movement to extend personhood and some legal protections to the non-human members of the great ape family: bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.
Cheeta is a chimpanzee character that appeared in numerous Hollywood Tarzan films of the 1930s–1960s, as well as the 1966–1968 television series, as the ape sidekick of the title character, Tarzan. Cheeta has usually been characterized as male, but sometimes as female, and has been portrayed by chimpanzees of both sexes.
Bedtime for Bonzo is a 1951 American comedy film directed by Fred de Cordova and starring Ronald Reagan, Diana Lynn, and a chimpanzee named Peggy as Bonzo. Its central character, a psychology professor (Reagan), tries to teach human morals to a chimpanzee, hoping to solve the "nature versus nurture" question.
Washoe was a female common chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using some American Sign Language (ASL) as part of an animal research experiment on animal language acquisition.
The Chimp Channel is an American sitcom which aired on TBS Superstation in 1999. Based on the Monkey-ed Movies interstitials that TBS aired one year prior, it is the network's first original sitcom. The series primarily consists of costumed chimpanzees and orangutans, voiced by human actors, parodying popular television shows, movies, and advertising as well as stars and personalities within the industry. The Chimp Channel marked the first all-simian series since ABC's Saturday morning Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp, which ended in 1972.
Great ape language research historically involved attempts to teach chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans to communicate using imitative human speech, sign language, physical tokens and computerized lexigrams. These studies were controversial, with debate focused on the definition of language, the welfare of test subjects, and the anthropocentric nature of this line of inquiry.
Tarzan, the Ape Man is a 1981 American adventure film directed by John Derek and starring Bo Derek, Miles O'Keeffe, Richard Harris, and John Phillip Law. The screenplay by Tom Rowe and Gary Goddard is loosely based on the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but from the point of view of Jane Parker.
Bubbles is a chimpanzee once kept as a pet by the American singer Michael Jackson, who bought him from a Texas research facility in the 1980s. Bubbles frequently traveled with Jackson, drawing attention in the media. In 1987, during the Bad world tour, Bubbles and Jackson drank tea with the mayor of Osaka, Japan.
King Kong Lives is a 1986 American monster adventure film directed by John Guillermin. Produced by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group and featuring special effects by Carlo Rambaldi, the film stars Linda Hamilton and Brian Kerwin.
Enos was a chimpanzee launched into space by NASA, following his predecessor Ham. He was the only chimpanzee to orbit the Earth, and the third hominid to do so after cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov. Enos's flight occurred on November 29, 1961.
Richard Franklin was an Australian film director.
Space Chimps is a 2008 animated comic science fiction film directed by Kirk DeMicco, who wrote the screenplay with Rob Moreland. It features the voices of Andy Samberg, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Patrick Warburton, Kristin Chenoweth, Kenan Thompson, Zack Shada, Carlos Alazraqui, Omid Abtahi, Patrick Breen, Jane Lynch, Kath Soucie, and Stanley Tucci.
Jiggs was a male chimpanzee and animal actor who originated the character of Cheeta in the 1930s Hollywood Tarzan movies. He was owned and trained by Tony and Jacqueline Gentry.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a 2011 American science fiction action film directed by Rupert Wyatt and written by the writing team of Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. It is a reboot of the Planet of the Apes film series and is the seventh installment overall and the first in the reboot series. The film stars James Franco, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, Tom Felton, and Andy Serkis. In the film, Caesar (Serkis), a chimpanzee genetically enhanced and raised by chemist Will Rodman (Franco), goes from living in captivity to eventually leading an ape uprising against humanity.
The Marquis Chimps were a group of trained chimpanzees that were used in variety shows and television programmes and commercials, initially in Britain and then in the United States, from the late 1940s to the 1980s. They were owned and trained by Gene Detroy.
