Pan Paniscus essays

Pan Paniscus essays The primate pan paniscus, also known as bonobo or pygmy chimpanzee, is one of the last of the Great Apes, and was completely unknown to scientists until just seventy-five years ago. Before the day in 1929 when the true identity of its skull was found out, it sat in a Belgium museum, thought to have simply been the skull of a young chimpanzee. Fortunately, German anatomist Ernst Schwarz realized that the skull did in fact belong to an adult, but not an adult chimpanzee, marking the discovery of a new species. After the extensive research done over the years on this species, it has been discovered that the less aggressive bonobos are in fact more human-like in behavior than their chimpanzee cousins, and are the closest living relative to homo sapiens. The bonobo is located in the Central Zaire Basin in Africa, though in the center of this area bonobos cannot be found. The bonobos range was thought to be continuous, but after many observations it has been decided that the species is actually quite rare in many areas, and common only in a few scattered areas. Bonobos dwell in a variety of forest types, including primary and secondary tropical rainforests, along with some living in swamp forests. Bonobos sleep in nests that they build in trees, usually made at approximately sixty-five feet above the ground (Lee 125). In some wet regions, for example the Lake Tumba area, seasonal nomadism can be extensive. Since bonobos have no problem wading though shallow water, long-distance nomadism is quite common. This species uses a variety of locomotion patterns. While it mostly moves quadrupedally, more specifically by knuckle-walking, most often, the bonobo has been known to move bipedally on occasion (Lee 125). Bonobos are also agile in t rees, being able to climb them and swing or leap between branches with ease. With major threats such as hunting and habitat loss, the bonobo is a highly endangered species. Traditional methods of slash...