Zoo Primate Observation

Our earliest ancestors are primates. They are our closest relatives which is why we can see our behavior’s and practices in them. If we observe them we can get a better understanding of them and us, human beings. But unfortunately we all don’t get the chance to see a Primate right in our backdoor. So the best thing I could do for my observation was to visit them at the zoo. For the purpose of this paper I visited the Los Angeles Zoo, on October 23, 2015. Luckily I was able to visit all of the animals in the short amount of time I had. I primarily stayed at the Gorilla and Chimp exhibit to understand their behaviors and how they act like us. From a far distance I was able to see the largest of the primates, Gorillas. The gorillas at the

I found this happening often with the chimpanzees more than the gorillas.

“Any activity that involves going through the hair and over the skin with the hands, lip, tongue, teeth, or tail to clean out extraneous objects such as dirt, particles of sweat-salt, external parasites, or other surface materials is considered grooming”(Simonds 169). Grooming is very important for hygiene. Although many are able to groom themselves they are dependent upon each other because there will always be spots that cannot be seen. As I stated earlier I saw Parental Investment. This is a great example because the mother was grooming her child, but the child does not groom back. I recently learned about Social Scratch. Everyone scratches because it relives and irritation. We do it absentmindedly and so do apes. What I found interesting is that is become more of a social grooming. Unlike grooming where each ape is grooming each other silmutanesoiuly, in social scratching only the gromee is getting the benefit. These apes do this because of the “I know you know” on other words you scratch my back I scratch yours. (McGrew 136). I found this happening very often among the chimps more than the gorillas. I also noticed that they would pull their hair and they had many bald spots throughout their body. Why is that? I still haven’t discovered an answer, but I would like to know the reasoning behind