Binta Jua, with daughter Koola, the center of attention at the Brookfield Zoo. She was
raised by the Columbus Zoo after being rejected by her mother. She was taught mothering
skills by humans.
Search For The Great Apes
High in the mountains of central Africa and deep within a rain forest of Indonesian
Borneo, two dedicated scientists have sought and found the mountain gorilla and the
elusive orangutan.
Capture monkeys with monkey radar, stun clubs, and
other gadgets
Several minigames included
What's more fun than a barrel of opposable-thumbed
simians? How about the silly--but challenging--Ape Escape? While not
the first game to offer enhanced control with Sony's dual-stick
analog controller, Ape Escape is the first game to require either an
analog or dual shock controller to play. That requirement ensures
that players will have full control of their hero, Spike. One stick
moves Spike in any direction, while the other swings his
monkey-catching devices. In Ape Escape, a circus monkey named
Specter stumbles upon a scientist's prototype intelligence-enhancing
helmet, turning him into an evil monkey genius. As Spike, the
professor's young friend, you must travel through time to clean up
all of the monkeys Specter has sent back in his attempt to
repopulate the world. If that's not enough to make you laugh, then
chasing his goofy monkey minions as they scurry from your clutches
will certainly tickle your funny bone. You'll discover a variety of
gadgets to help you in your quest, including monkey radar, a
slingshot, and a propeller for flying. Spanning 25 huge levels, Ape
Escape is approachable for novices, and offers added challenges for
veteran gamers. One such challenge is to lure a dinosaur near a
rocky cliff, and then jar the monkey off his back and into your net.
Note: no monkeys were harmed in the creation of this game.
Planet of the Apes
Draws on the legacy of the original movies
Incorporates stories from Planet of the Apes and
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Play as Ulysses, sole human survivor
Multiple detailed levels
Puzzles and mutated races
Considered a classic today, the Planet of the Apes
novel was first published in 1963, followed by the first of the
original five movies in 1968, starring Charlton Heston. This game is
based on original stories intertwining the first film, Planet of the
Apes, and the second, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and draws upon
the richness of the novel and the classic films.
Books
Significant Others
The Ape-Human Continuum and the Quest for Human
Nature
Engaging, enlightening, and eloquent, Significant Others
tells of our closest cousins and the scientists who study them. Author
Craig B. Stanford is co-director of the Jane Goodall Research Center and
knows as much as anyone about field research on the great ape. His prose
combines a vivid, almost poetic descriptive sensibility with a
refreshingly deadpan rationality too often missing from writings on
endangered or threatened species. Covering a wide range of topics from
tool use to evolutionary psychology to the controversy over language in
nonhumans ("an intellectual turf game, poorly played"),
Stanford still sticks unerringly to his thesis that field research of
wild apes yields deep insights into human nature. His enthusiasm for the
work shines in passages like this one:
In a mountain meadow dripping with dew, we're following a group of
gorillas on their daily rounds. It's a raw day and the clouds are
hanging above and beneath us. The gorillas climb a steep, fern-coated
hill to a saddle, and we all tumble over the crest into a huge salad
bowl of a valley that is greener than green. As if to ensure that such
words won't provoke a glut of fieldworker wannabes, he is careful to
mention the long hours, boredom, and physical suffering he and his
colleagues must endure to earn such rewards. The inevitable collision of
science with politics is especially pronounced in war-ravaged central
Africa, where most great-ape work is conducted, and Stanford speaks
plainly about life during wartime and his subjects' too-real threat of
extinction. Significant Others gives the reader a fresh respect for apes
as apes--not stunted people, not lab-dwelling curiosities, but uniquely
wonderful beings in their own right. Just like us.
Bonobo
The Forgotten Ape
For Frans de Waal, man is not the only moral entity, as he
made clear in his last book--Good Natured: The Origins of Right and
Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. The author has long been intrigued by
chimpanzee politics and mores, and now he has turned his human heart and
scientific mind to a species science has tended to celebrate solely for
its sex drive. Bonobos may look like chimps, but they are actually even
closer to us--far more upright, physically, for a start. Furthermore,
where chimpanzees hunt, fight, and politic like mad, bonobos are
peaceful, often ambisexual, and matriarchal. (Of course, hyenas are
matriarchal too, but that's another story ...) De Waal's collaborator,
Frans Lanting, has been photographing these gentle creatures for some
years and augments the primatologist's explorations and interviews with
hundreds of superb color shots. The penultimate picture is of bonobos
crossing a road while schoolchildren stand watching, a short distance
away. If, as the truism goes, all books about animal behavior are
ultimately about us, this exploration of the bonobo may be a step in the
right direction.
Reflections of Eden
My Years With the Orangutans of Borneo
Galdikas is a "trimate," one of three women who
devoted themselves to the study of great apes in the wild. Her zeal for
learning about orangutans emulates Jane Goodall's fascination with
chimpanzees and the late Dian Fossey's dedication to gorillas. Not only
is Galdikas a brilliant, courageous, and persevering scientist, but she
is also a wonderfully engaging and generous writer. She tells the entire
mesmerizing story of how she came to be the world's foremost orangutan
expert, eloquently sharing her passion for these red-haired, arboreal,
intelligent, gentle and reclusive yet personable creatures. As she
recounts her exhausting efforts to track and observe the orangutans of
Borneo's rain forest, Galdikas also candidly describes the unexpected
impact her mission has on her personal life. Some of the most
challenging and humbling episodes involve her serving as a surrogate
mother for orphaned orangutan infants. As she gazes into the eyes of her
beloved "cross-species" children, she catches a "glimpse
of what we were before we were fully human. . .a reflection of
Eden," a revelation that inspires much musing on the significance
of our close genetic bond to our primate cousins. Galdikas' detailed
chronicle is alive with captivating portraits of individual
orangutans--from "vigorous and decisive" Cara to clinging
Sugito, amorous TP, and loving Akmad--and charged with the forces of
love, determination, grief, and recovery. Donna Seaman
