Oliver, the bipedal chimpanzee

[anotheranon]

I knew I discussed this with someone at K.Zoo, and I've likely mentioned it elsewhere as well - imagine my surprise when cryptomundo coughed up this article this morning.

Long story short: Oliver is a 32 year old chimpanzee who has always walked upright (there are a lot of photos at the link - more than I've ever seen anywhere else). He made the rounds of circuses as a "baby bigfoot" or some such back in the day; tests later proved he was a genetically ordinary chimpanzee who happens to walk upright, for whatever reason. He's in the news again because his host animal sanctuary is falling into disrepair.

So.. not a Bigfoot, but interesting nonetheless. The person/people I was discussing this with over the weekend suggested that long exposure to humans caused Oliver to imitate their upright stance, and I suppose that's possible (Disclaimer: I am not a zoologist/primatologist), even though IIRC ape physiology would make it unlikely as the head is set too far forward on the spine to make it practical - perhaps standing upright for so long has deformed Oliver's spine? I'd love to get Jane Goodall's take on this (yes, I know, that's what Google is for but I've gotta go to work :P)

Comments

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Part of the reason chimps have difficulty walking upright for long periods of time, aside from the skull/spine relationship and the lack of curve in the lower spine, is the arrangement and development of the muscles of the upper thigh, hip and lower back; our large buttock muscles are part of the reason we CAN walk upright (chimps and other great apes have, in the words of George Carlin, "no ass"), and probably contributed greatly to the development of the current s-shape of our spines. Most members of a species have their muscle attachments to their bones in the same places, but there'll always be a few individuals at each far end of the possibility spectrum (even a few millimetres difference can have a huge effect on leverage and strength) ... 'tis likely that Oliver is one of these. Couple that with being raised by humans who probably encouraged him to walk upright, thus developing his strength in this area beyond what it would have been in the wild, and voila!

I, too, would be interested in seeing the opinions of professional anthropologists, rather than the speculations of people who believe in bigfoot and human/ape hybrids. :p

[timcharmorbien.livejournal.com]

I do know a lot of people are interested in Oliver as a possible clue as to how our ancesters started walking upright, though I think spine shape vs. buttocks is a chicken-or-egg debate - - which came first? Or did they happen together?

And this is almost completely unrelated, but I found an interesting tidbit: Cheetah, the chimpanzee that was in the Johny Weismuller Tarzan films in the 30s and 40s, recently had a 74th birthday celebration. I never knew chimps lived much past 50, so I found that interesting.