Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Primates

A chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) mother resting with her children in western Uganda.

New Research

Ebola Vaccine For Chimps Could Help Save Wild Populations

A trial of a chimp vaccine highlights debates over vaccinating wild populations and using chimps in medical research

Mom's ample body serves as this baby's bed for now, but soon she'll grow up to build sleeping nests of her own.

New Research

Chimpanzees Are Extremely Picky About Where They Sleep

The primates painstakingly rebuild their nest from scratch every night—a pre-bed ritual reminiscent of the “Princess and the Pea”

New Research

Spider Monkeys Are the Only Other Primate Species That Segregates by Sex

Spider monkey females are basically living together in a feminist commune to escape the aggressive, greedy males

New Research

We Burn Just Half the Calories Other Mammals Do

Our slow metabolism helps explain why it takes us so long to grow up—and why we live such long lives

Silky sifakas have long eked out an existence in rugged, high-altitude forests. Now the growing number of people nearby pose a threat to the furtive primate.

Saving the Silky Sifaka

In Madagascar, an American researcher races to protect one of the world’s rarest mammals, a white lemur known as the silky sifaka

Calaya gave birth to the Zoo's first male western lowland gorilla in nine years.

Good News/Bad News: The Primate Chapter

None

Suspect Arrested in Gorilla Killings

None

UPDATE: State of Emergency

The latest on the endangered mountain gorillas in war-ravaged Congo

None

Animal Insight

Recent studies illustrate which traits humans and apes have in common—and which they don’t

Guerrillas in Their Midst

Face to face with Congo’s imperiled mountain gorillas

Two days after the killings, villagers poured in to help rangers carry bodies back to Bukima and then on to Rumangabo for burial. Here, volunteers are taking the pregnant and badly burned Mburanumwe out of the forest.

State of Emergency

The slaughter of four endangered mountain gorillas in war-ravaged Congo sparks conservationist action

Claudine Andre, founder of Lola Ya Bonobo (Bonobo Paradise) sanctuary, rescues about ten of the endangered animals per year.

Bonobo Paradise

“Bonobo Paradise” is an 86-acre sanctuary set in verdant hills 20 miles south of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Sue Savage-Rumbaugh (with Kanzi in 2003) says her bonobos can communicate with her and each other using more than 348 symbols.

Speaking Bonobo

Bonobos have an impressive vocabulary, especially when it comes to snacks

Bonobos have a playful, gentle manner that is often reminiscent of human beings at their best. Our common primate ancestor lived six million years ago.

The Smart and Swinging Bonobo

Civil war has threatened the existence of wild bonobos, while new research on the hypersexual primates challenges their peace-loving reputation

None

Wild Things: Life As We Know It

Human behavior, primate intelligence, meal planning, tree-dwelling orchids and detangling history

None

Wild Things: Life As We Know It

From chimpanzee communication to paper wasps and humans fleeing Vesuvius

A verreaux's sifaka lemur can jump 30 feet

For the Love of Lemurs

To her delight, social worker-turned-scientist Patricia Wright has found the mischievous Madagascar primates to be astonishingly complex

None

35 Who Made a Difference: Janis Carter

The primate who taught other primates how to survive in the wild

35 Who Made a Difference: Richard Leakey

The leader of the Hominid Gang asks what he can do for his continent

Having logged thousands of hours observing chimpanzees and other apes, Frans de Waal (left, at his Atlanta field station) argues that primates, including humans and bonobos, are more cooperative and less ruthless than once thought.

Rethinking Primate Aggression

Researcher Frans de Waal shows that apes (and humans) get along better than we thought

Page 8 of 9