Word: chimp
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...Pygmy chimp may be the common ancestor...
...past few years, researchers have become increasingly skilled at opening dialogues with chimpanzees, perhaps man's closest kin in the animal world. The famed chimp Washoe, now in Oklahoma, has managed to learn more than 100 hand sign-language symbols since the mid-'60s. At Yerkes, a sprightly female named Lana was tutored to communicate with her keepers in a language called Yerkish-a system of geometric symbols (squares, circles, lines, etc.) that stand for English words. By punching out these symbols, or lexigrams, as they are called, on a computer-monitored console, which displayed them...
...test, the researchers report in Science, they alternately led each chimp off by himself into another room. There he was allowed to watch a container being filled with any one of eleven different kinds of food, such as bananas, bean cake and candy. Handed the food, he was then led back by a researcher (who did not know the container's contents). The other chimp quickly eyed the sealed container but had no idea what was in it either. The returning chimp would then press the appropriate button on the console, which would flash the lexigram for the food...
...could the animals communicate directly on the console without human participation? To find out, the scientists separated the chimps by a transparent barrier with a small opening in it. Only one chimp was given food, but the other chimp could see the varied delicacies. Spontaneously, without any prodding by the investigators, he would punch out his request and, more often than not, his buddy would comply. At first Sherman, older and apparently more quick-witted, seemed to make "errors." When asked to share an especially tasty item-say, chocolate-he occasionally ignored the request, seemed to feign ignorance or proffered...
...Monkey King," who for 45 years imported wild animals to the U.S.; in Bound Brook, NJ. A flamboyant showman, Trefflich built a million-dollar-a-year business selling exotic creatures from his four-story Lower Manhattan menagerie to scientists, moviemakers and carnival hucksters. Among his sales: Tarzan's chimp Cheetah and the monkeys used in breakthrough Rh (rhesus) factor research. Occasionally a restless snake would escape from Trerflich's store; once 100 monkeys created harmless havoc on Wall Street and made the headlines. Trefflich claimed the escape was accidental; skeptics abounded...