Every Ape in Planet of the Apes Explained | WIRED

i'm dr tara stowinski president and ceo and chief scientific officer of the diane fosse gorilla fund and i'm here to talk about each great ape that's featured in the new planet of the apes trilogy what a lot of people don't realize is that humans are considered great apes as well great apes are a group of animals called hominids there's actually eight species but you might be familiar with the four most common types which are chimpanzees gorillas orangutans and bonobos [Music] chimpanzees chimpanzees are the most featured ape in the planet of the apes trilogy although caesar is shown to be a pet in the movie chimpanzees and actually all primates do not make good pets for a chimpanzee to be a pet it has to be taken away from its mother at quite a young age and mother infant bonds and chimpanzees and all the great apes just like in humans are incredibly strong so that's a very traumatic experience for a young chimpanzee chimpanzees communicate with each other using a variety of both gestural and vocal communication the same way we do and they have a pant hoot which is a very loud sound that they make when they're excited maybe when they find a good food or if they hear other chimpanzees in the region so caesar communicates with humans in the movie using sign language in the 1960s and 70s sign language was a really interesting area of research with chimpanzees but actually with all of the great apes so every one of the great apes each species has actually been taught to use sign language and one of the amazing things about chimpanzees is they have the widest distribution of any of the great apes they can live in rainforests or they can live in savannahs as well on the western side there's the western subspecies and they live in countries like senegal and mali and then you have the nigeria cameroon chimpanzee which not surprisingly is found in nigeria and cameroon then there is the central chimpanzee and they're found in gabon the republic of congo equatorial guinea and then on the far east side you have the eastern chimpanzee and they live in countries like rwanda burundi and tanzania when caesar overtakes rocket for alpha status he is showing one of the classic hallmarks of chimpanzee behavior so male chimpanzees have linear dominance hierarchies and they definitely compete over the course of their life to be dominant and the reason for that is related to reproduction so dominant male chimpanzees sire the majority of offspring in the movies caesar is portrayed when he has a infant as sort of a king and queen type situation the two of them together and that is not actually what we see in chimpanzee society chimpanzees have a mating system that is called promiscuous where males mate with multiple females and females also mate with multiple males i think one of the most incredible things about chimpanzees that's been shown is that they actually have protocultures that are just like human culture so culture is something that is not something you learn in your environment but it's actually passed on socially so it's passed on generation to generation and researchers have documented that chimpanzees in the wild have these different cultures so they have different behaviors that have nothing to do with their environment but rather have been created by someone in their group and then passed on over time through social learning in the movie you see chimps using weapons quite a bit this is not something we generally see a lot of in the wild however there have been examples of chimpanzees throwing sticks and other objects down on human or other observers probably the closest example are there are chimpanzees in west africa who have been observed using sticks kind of as spears and putting them in holes to try and stab another species of primate called a bush baby in the planet of the ape trilogies we see the chimpanzees walking upright quite a bit and chimpanzees and other great apes can certainly do this they can walk upright although they generally don't do it for long periods of time and it's really because these animals are well adapted for living in the trees and so the way that their bodies function and are formed to enable them to climb makes it really difficult for them to walk upright for long periods of time bonobos bonobos and chimpanzees look very similar bonobos are slightly smaller than chimpanzees and that led to them being called pygmy chimpanzees for a long time but we know them as a different species they're not just a different type of chimpanzee they're their own species but they are smaller they also are born with a very dark face whereas chimpanzees are born with a light face that darkens over time and those are kind of some of the big physical differences bonobos have the most restrictive range of any of the great apes so they are found in only one country democratic republic of the congo and they are found south of the congo river whereas chimpanzees and gorillas are found north of the congo river so they actually are the only great ape that lives in this particular part of congo what's really different about the way that coba is portrayed in planet of the apes is it's very unbonobo like where we see more striking differences is in their behavior so he's a very aggressive individual and in actuality bonobos are really considered kind of pacifists they are very playful they keep their playful personality as adults they're known for being very calm using sex rather than aggression to settle fights really it's chimpanzees in the wild that have the more aggressive personality that you see being portrayed in coba in the movie you see that koba and caesar are split over their relationship with humans in the wild we don't see that there is animosity towards humans generally it's the opposite where humans are aggressive and attack or kill great apes human work human work what we do see though is animosity within a species bonobos are actually the only species where that hasn't been observed actually when groups come together they can be quite friendly now what has happened in some places particularly with chimpanzees is that where human communities and chimpanzee communities have come close together so for example where humans have deforested areas and chimpanzees are left in small little isolated forest patches we have seen chimpanzees attack humans and i think it's not an animosity thing that they're actually viewing humans as a source of prey and actually just recently there was the first ever recorded sighting of chimpanzees killing a gorilla even after 50 plus years of watching these animals in the wild it was just observed for the first time earlier this year gorillas in the movie the gorillas are really portrayed as the guards and i think a lot of that is just a result of their sheer size gorillas are amazing they are the world's largest primate they start at four pounds at birth and males can grow to be 400 pounds there's four types of gorillas in total and only one of those four are found in zoos and in west africa there are two subspecies there's the cross river gorilla and then there's the western lowland gorilla and that's the type of gorilla you can see in a zoo there's a big area in the central part of africa where you don't find gorillas at all that's where you find the bonobos in eastern africa there are another two species they're the mountain gorillas and they're the gorillas that were made famous by diane fosse and are featured in the movies gorillas in the mist and then there's one called the growers gorillas and like bonobos they are only found in the democratic republic of congo male and female gorillas are the same exact size until about the age of eight and at that point female gorillas are considered adults and they sort of grow a lot more slowly until about 12 when they're full size male gorillas however at that age are really they enter a phase called the black back phase so it's kind of an adolescence and they really shoot up in size and they continue growing until about the age of 15 and at that point they've gained their adult characteristics a male gorilla is called a silverback it's just a process of maturation so every male gorilla becomes a silverback so just like human males at a certain age get broader chests and facial hair male gorillas around the same age will again get that broad chest a big head and the hair on the back will turn silver and that's a sign that they've reached adulthood and male gorillas are really they are in charge of their family so they decide when it's time to eat when it's time to rest where the family is going to sleep at night they really are the protectors of their family unit and in the wild the males really do take on this guard role i mean all of that size and strength the purpose of it is to defend their family and to defend their family from other groups of gorillas and this is particularly evident with young gorillas if they lose their moms and in that situation they basically will be taken under the wing of the dominant silverback even if it's not their kid they will still take on responsibility for allowing this infant to feed near them so they can still have access to good food the infants will often travel near them and they'll even sleep with them at night in their nest so i do think this portrayal of male gorillas as protectors and planet of the apes really gets at the core of what male gorillas are in their own families a couple of cool things about gorillas when diane fossey started her pioneering work to study them 54 years ago the common perception of gorillas were king kong ferocious beast and when she studied them and got to know them as individuals and got to see their family social structure she really changed the narrative and so gorillas are actually known as now as gentle giants gorillas are strict vegetarians so don't ever let anyone tell you you can't get big and strong just by eating your vegetables gorillas are always black but they do have a lot of color variation particularly in the western species you will get a lot of red particularly around their heads and then they have that silver back but i've never seen a red gorilla in the films there's a white gorilla named winter but we have not observed any white gorillas in the wild there was one in a zoo in spain his name was snowflake but white gorillas would really not camouflage well in the dark forest environments of africa orangutans maurice in the movie is seen as a very wise and smart ape and certainly orangutans are incredibly intelligent there is a joke that said if you were to give a screwdriver to a chimpanzee they break it if you gave it to a gorilla they'd throw it away and if you gave it to an orangutan they would sort of squirrel it away and then at some point use it to dismantle you know whatever was in the room so they are known for their incredible intelligence orangutans are the only great ape found in asia so they live on the islands of borneo and sumatra orangutans are divided into three species up until recently actually two were only recognized the bornean and the sumatran and then in 2017 the tapanuli orangutan was also described they are a beautiful red color and have incredibly long arms that really is because of the particular niche that they fill so they are the most forgivers of all the apes meaning they rely a lot on fruit this part of their diet makes it hard for them to live in social groups so you can imagine if you're a 200 pound male orangutan and you need to find enough food to eat and you come across a food tree if there's 12 other orangutans in that fruit tree that fruit is going to be gone pretty quickly and as a result they spend a lot of time high up in the trees and so these long arms enable them to kind of move from branch to branch and span across these treetops as they move through the forest looking for food so orangutans actually are primarily solitary whereas the african great apes live in social groups orangutans spend most of their lives as solitary individuals and the males in particular have this really unique look so they have what are called flanges around their face so these cheek pads around their face it's one of their secondary sexual characteristics and they emit these very loud long calls because these animals are solitary so they need to communicate with other orangutans over a much larger distance than say a gorilla might who lives in a close-knit social family humans a lot of people don't realize but humans are also considered a great ape so they're kind of the fifth type of grade eight in the movie we see complex relationships between humans and great apes and i think the same exists you know in real life unfortunately for great apes humans are really their greatest threat whether it be through habitat destruction through poaching climate change we are unfortunately pushing grade eight populations to the brink of extinction but i think one of the reasons that these movies resonate so much with people is because we see so much of ourselves in great apes they share the same emotions as us they share the same kinds of relationships that we do and so my hope is when people see movies like planet of the apes they recognize kind of the common humanity that we have with our closest relatives and that makes people interested in preserving them in the wild that these aren't going to be just animals that we might see in a zoo or in a movie but that these animals will retain their incredible cultures and social lives in the wild as well to me one of the best things about the planet of the eight movies is that no actual apes were in these movies the fact that these are all computer-generated apes with humans behind them to me is incredible and the technology is amazing and i was lucky enough to get to work with andy circus when he was actually preparing to be kong in the king kong movies and i think that his portrayal of apes is truly amazing i mean he really captures just the subtleties of the way they move and interact great apes are so much like us like us they have friends and enemies like us they have emotions like us they have really rich complex social lives and so i think you know my career as a primatologist and a conservationist i hope that we can cohabitate together maybe a little bit better than the apes did in the planet of the apes trilogy

Channel: WIRED

Views: 2,260,920

Keywords: apes, arts & entertainment, arts and entertainment, bonobos, bornean orangutans, chimpanzees, dian fossey gorilla fund, every ape, every ape explained, gorillas, great ape, great ape wired, great apes, great apes wired, innovation, orangutans, orangutans apes, planet of the apes, science & tech, science & technology, science and tech, science and technology, sumatran orangutans, wired, wired great apes

Id: nNaA87PMIQE

Length: 14min 54sec (894 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/WarWoodieRevolution1]

Thanks for that, cool documentary!!