Chimps, Gorillas, Gibbons, and Orangs

[Beau Geste (imported)]

Since genetic research in the last few years has shown that the great apes are genetically very similar to us humans, (Chimps have somewhere around 99% of the same genes that people do) and their mental abilities have been found to be greater than was once thought, I wonder if anyone here has done any research to find out whether chimpanzees or any of the other higher primates, besides homo sapiens, show dissatisfaction with their genitalia and consequently attempt to remove those organs. I have never heard of anything like that, but then I know very little about the sex lives of apes.

As to whether apes might have any notion of their own gender identity, this would seem to be associated with their abstract mental abilities. Koko, the signing gorilla, appeared, according to what I have read, to have mental abilities comparable to a ten year old child. She did appear to be capable of forming some abstract ideas, and her signing indicated that she could conceive of herself as a being--though, or course, as a honhuman being. That is the basis of identity as we know it, so she, and presumably other gorillas, could have some sort of notion of their sexual identity.

I can't offhand remember hearing or reading of a chimp or gorilla having his testes removed. It seems unlikely that there is a specific term which is used to refer to any male of the great apes who has had his gonads severed.

[homptydumpty (imported)]

Thought provoking.

[FianceeUvBigGuy (imported)]

Hi all,

Yoli here, loafing at home when I should be working on a case...giggle!

It just so happens that I do have some information on this subject.

A couple of years ago some friends and I made a pilgrimage to a zoo...nice place...and learned that many primates AND some other species, squirrels in particular, will attempt to castrate each other when fighting, especially if over a female. (Well, I'd be flattered if some guys attempted to castrate each other over me, but then I'd surprise the victor by running off with the loser.)

While we watched, a chimp and a rival were battling, with two keepers risking life and limb (and balls?) trying to seperate them. One of the chimps suffered severe damage to his party parts with one ballsy dangling out of the baggie.

Another zoo person was observing the carnage and told us that certain animals, somehow knowing that castrating a rival, or even biting or tearing off his peepee, will eliminate another rival.

We were told that there were a couple chimps and other similar types there that had no balls, all as a result of fighting, and that a very few had lost all or part of their peepees. Some had been euthanized, especially of their peepees had been pretty much totally ripped or bitten off, and one or two had bled to death before any medical measure could be taken.

After some effort we were pretty certain we had spotted a chimp who had lost his balls. He was off by himself and seemed to be either ostracized by his tribe or simply chose to remain apart.

One of the girls in our little Castration Coven saw a Rottweiler lose his balls in a fight with another dog. The dog survived, but his love life didn't.

Well, go ahead, blame it on us girls again!

Other than that, no great tidings from San Antonio, 'cept that I had sense enough to get ALL my considerable Christmas shopping done well before Thanksgiving. NO Black Friday for me! While others are dealing with traffic jams and mobs, my spare time is taken up with working from home and fun trips to the ranch. Got my first deer of the season a few days ago, even "did the honors, post-mortem" myself. Then the really messy part began but it wasn't so bad cause it was a neck shot so the body cavity wasn't gory.

If a few years ago, before I met BigGuy and his lady, someone had predicted that I'd become a fishergirl and huntress, I'd have squealed "Ewwwwwww" and run away. Well, now I'm good at it and I LIKE it! Wellll, except for the wild piggies...the gutting, etc, is horrible, so I always get some masculine assistance. On the other hand, we're talking HUGE balls here.

I wonder if a video of me removing the ballsies from a buck, with Ash(leigh) holding his legs apart, would be a best-seller. Can I get some pre-orders here? Never mind. I don't need PETA's nose up my bottom.

With love, liberty, and castration for all (who want or deserve it)!!!

Your loving,

Yolanda The Slightly Kinked

(and loving it!)

[I Worship Women (imported)]

On the issue of the similarities and differences between humans and apes, I have wondered if we say that man descended from the apes because the real truth is even less flattering. According to scientists, humans are apes. Biologists list humans at the top of the order called The Great Apes, an order we share with chimpanzees, gorillas, baboons, and orangutans.

I do NOT mean any disrespect for those with down's syndrome, but something else interesting I have read. Humans have 46 chromosomes, chimpanzees (our nearest animal relative) have 48 chromosomes. People with down's syndrome have 47 chromosomes. That made me wonder. They talk about a missing link between apes and humans. If there was some kind of missing link, maybe it wasn't a species of human, maybe the missing link if there was one, was a genetic condition we now know as down's syndrome.

[SethRose (imported)]

An interesting thought IWM, but I have to doubt the survivability of persons with Down syndrome in a primitive/primate society, though perhaps you're on the right track and it was another - less crippling – disorder of and/or related to chromosomes.

To the original question of self-induced castration in the animal kingdom, while we have found tremendous intelligence in chimps and dolphins, their level of awareness has not been found to reach the complexity of our own. “I think therefore I am”, is about as far as we’ve been able to establish that they’ve gotten. Where as Homo-Sapiens have more sapience than is often good for them; “I think therefore my mobile’s ring-tone must show how original and trendy I am.” Once you reach that level of complexity you are more likely to encounter self-examination and an interest in taking measures towards bettering ones self.

By the same token; there are adult humans with varying levels of self-awareness. This is usually aided by education and other environmental factors. One man might be blissfully ignorant of how meaningless his life is and his brother is awe struck by how insignificant his life is in the great cosmos. I remember when I was a young boy and learned about Stingrays at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I had loved to play in the ocean prior to this knowledge but now suddenly I was aware of a great threat lurking unseen beneath the waters. This is a delicate and terrible balance we face as a species, the more we know the more we know how frail and tiny we are. The flip side here though is that because we have this knowledge we can take measures to improve our lot and hedge against our frailty, or take a deep breath and wade into the water knowing the risks but favoring the rewards. Either way, I feel we are better for it than being ignorant of ourselves and our environment.

I have a lot of sympathy for people with gender/genital dysphoria, but I think that it is a credit to ones vaster sense of self-awareness that you can even come to such conclusions. Better to know there is that danger/problem between your legs so you can take steps to address it rather than being ignorant of a problem and having no idea what the problem is when it stings you.

[I Worship Women (imported)]

This is becoming an interesting discussion about the human mind. Many people say the mind is sort of a second set of sex organs because sex and sexual feelings are as much mental as they are physical.

SethRose, from things I have read and seen in television reports and documentaries, we are learning that some animals are much more self aware than we thought.

We used to think that what made us "human" and separated us from being "animals" is that we make and use tools. But there are other animals that make and use very simple tools, so tool making and use wasn't the answer. Then we said it was that humans think and reason. But we find a level of thinking and reasoning in various animal species as they solve problems they encounter. Then we said it is that we communicate, but all species of social animals such as bees, ants, a pride of lions, a flock of migratory birds, communicate. that is how their "society" is held together and works.

Then we said humans have what is called an awareness of self. But experiments have shown that chimps, gorillas, and even dolphins have this awareness of self. Mirrors were put in a dolphin tank and the dolphins soon realized the reflections they saw in the mirrors wasn't another dolphin, they were seeing themselves.

From some of the posts in this thread it is obvious that many species of social animals recognize an association between the male organs and rivalry for females, and position in their sociaty. Interesting.

[kb57z (imported)]

...

something else interesting I have read. Humans have 46 chromosomes, chimpanzees (our nearest animal relative) have 48 chromosomes. People with down's syndrome have 47 chromosomes. That made me wonder. They talk about a missing link between apes and humans. If there was some kind of missing link, maybe it wasn't a species of human, maybe the missing link if there was one, was a genetic condition we now know as down's syndrome.

Actually, it's more correct to say that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, whereas the (other) chimpanzees have 24 pairs. One of the human pairs is two of the ape pairs spliced together.

The "extra" chromosome is something different, where the processes that make two cells out of one (either to make more cells, or to make the "germ" cells for reproduction) make a mistake. THe extra chromosome is a duplicate and makes up the third member of a pair, and in doing so upsets the "program" that "builds" a human.

[Serul (imported)]

As to whether apes might have any notion of their own gender identity, this would seem to be associated with their abstract mental abilities. Koko, the signing gorilla, appeared, according to what I have read, to have mental abilities comparable to a ten year old child. She did appear to be capable of forming some abstract ideas, and her signing indicated that she could conceive of herself as a being--though, or course, as a honhuman being. That is the basis of identity as we know it, so she, and presumably other gorillas, could have some sort of notion of their sexual identity.

I'll take this opportunity to point out that you're treading on a pretty controversial and highly-debatable topic. While the people studying Koko, and other primates who were supposedly taught to sign, would really like for them to be just as intelligent and capable of language as we are, their studies mostly indicate that this is not the case and highlight the inherent bias in humans to expect these things. I remember listening to a lecture by Noam Chomsky, in which he mentioned at the end (in response to a question on the matter) a group at some university that had studies chimpanzees and thought it had made enormous breakthroughs, but later reviewed their records and found that they had been fooling themselves the whole time. That is to say that much of what appears to be language is probably conditioned responses, because giving the proper sign in response to another earns Koko a banana or something, so she'll learn to respond the way the researcher wants. He also made the point that it's extremely unlikely for them to have something that would be so beneficial to their evolution as the ability to acquire language and never make use of it in nature; that it would be like discovering one day that humans have always been able to fly, but we never have because nobody showed us how.

I'm no expert, and I'm open to more information if it seems reliable, but I'm a firm believer that what Koko and other apes can do is not quite language.

Whatever the case, it's highly-debatable, and controversial, as I said. Koko may be signing, but it's not a reliable enough basis to claim that she has a sense of identity (though there are plenty of other things to suggest this, like the fact that gorillas and chimpanzees and others can recognize themselves in mirrors).

[Paolo]

I don't know, that chimp who played Cheetah in those Tarzan flicks was pretty damn smart!

Does anyone remember the video from a few years ago, where a small boy fell into the gorilla pit at some zoo? The fall busted him up pretty bad, knocked him out, but surprisingly, I think it was the alpha male of the troop who chased the onlooking gorillas off and actually tried to figure out what was wrong with the kid and kept the others away from him until a zookeeper got in there. Then the ape just handed the boy over to him, and almost acted as if he were going to follow them out to see what was going on - almost as if he wanted to make sure the kid was going to be OK? Not typical behavior from what I've read.

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

Paolo

I was unable to locate the video-link to the incident you described but did find it described on this one by the Jim Lehrer News Hour program:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/essays/apes_9-17.html