Zoo Report

Zoo Report

There is a lot I learned studying the primates. Primates are very fasincating and I

think there is a lot more to learn about them. There are many different primates in the

world and for many of them not much is known. Primates have many different

characteristics and because of this they are classified in different groups of spieces.

I did my observations on prosimians, new world monekys, old world monkeys, and

apes as well as some research to learn more about them.

I went to Lincoln Park zoo to do some observation on the Apes and the one

I chose was the common chimpanzee. When I found the habitat for the common

chimpanzee it looked very well suited for them. The habitat inside had features of what

resembled somewhat like a savannah; however, the habitat that was built for the outdoors

resembled that of a forest. When observing the common chimpanzee I was looking at

weather or not the spine is stiff. Their spines are pretty stiff because they did not look

as if they had much movement in their back when they were moving around. What I

began to observe next about them is if they had ischial callosities. The male chimpanzee's

had ischial callosities while most of the females were in estrus. Once taking noticed that the

female chimpanzees were in estrus I began to pay more attention to them. From observing

the females I took notice to something I had not reliazed before. What I noticed was that

the male chimpanzees in the habitat were just following the females in estrus around like

puppy dogs. The female chimpanzees in estrus just continued to go about there day while

the male chimpanzees tried to impress them. There was still much more for me to observe

so I stayed at the chimpanzee habitat longer. In the habitat from what I saw there seemed

to be more females than there were males. I took notice to some of the young as well.

There were just a couple of young chimpanzees