BBC/Discovery: Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees, with their family and community life, group politics, and manual abilities, fascinate humans and provide up with many clues to our own evolution. In captivity, some chimpanzees have been taught to communicate using sign language or symbols. Such achievements, however, are little more than tricks compared to the remarkable skills they show in their own wild environment. Chimpanzees explores the lives of the chimpanzees and describes the differences between two species--the common chimpanzee and the pygmy chimpanzee, also known as the bonobo. The chapters cover: the daily life of chimpanzees, traveling, foraging, and socializing in their forest habitat; the stages of a young chimpanzee's development; the importance of experience in successful motherhood; the controlling hierarchy of male and female behavior, particularly in mating strategies; how chimpanzees use tools to solve problems of daily life; how they work as a team for hunting and protection; and how they use their social intelligence.