Anthropology: Shelf One

Chimps & Bonobo

On Shelf #1: Here you will find the skulls of our closest living primate cousins, the members of the genus Pan, the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and the bonobo, which is sometimes and unfortunately called the “pygmy chimpanzee” (Pan paniscus).  Both closely related species live in the rain forests of west central Africa – they are separated by about only a million years of evolutionary time and by the width of the great Congo River (chimpanzees live to the north of that river and bonobos to the south.)

•  We have on display a male chimpanzee next to the skull of infant. If you compare these skulls you can see the development of the jaws in the adult. Compare that to the modern human skulls displayed on shelf #3 of display case #3. In humans. The development of the jaws is much less marked but the growth of the brain case from infancy to adulthood is highly developed.

•  You can also compare these adult and infant chimpanzee skulls to the skulls of modern human adult and infant on display case #3, shelf #3. Note the relative size of the brain case to the size of the face in each species. Also note the increased amount of brain growth in humans as compared to chimps.

•  In comparing the male chimpanzee skull and the female bonobo skull, you will see that some evidence that male apes tend to be more robustly built than females (note the size of the canine teeth in the male chimpanzee as well as in the male gorilla and male orangutan in the shelf below.)

RELATED ARTICLES: Requires a login off-campus.