Kanzi, (born at Yerkes Field Station at Emory University, Atlanta, and moved to the Language Research Center at Georgia State University), a bonobo, not only developed good English comprehension and syntax, but also made stone tools.īut how does the intelligence of living great apes, such as Koko the gorilla, compare with our 3 million-year-old relatives, such as “Lucy” the Australopithecine? Lucy (a 40% complete female specimen of the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia) is generally considered to have been smarter because the size of her brain, indicated by the fossil braincases of Australopithecus species, is larger than orangutans and chimpanzees, and is comparable to gorillas despite the great difference in body mass. The chimpanzee Washoe (born in West Africa in 1965 and captured for use by the US Air Force for research on the US space programme) was taught to use sign language and learned about 350 signs. The gorilla Koko (who was born at the San Francisco Zoo and lived in California) was taught to communicate with her teacher, Francine Patterson. The great apes, including humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans, are very intelligent.
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