Naked Chimpanzees These are the Chimpanzees ( chimps) from the Twycross zoo at Atherstone, England. The two brothers are suffering from alopecia, which is the general medical term for hair loss. In the background you can hear some one asking the keeper about it and the keeper explaining. The monkeys have a good old noisy clash. A few scratches and some minor wounds and probably a few more scars, but afterwards all forgotten and time for a hug. http://youtu.be/-ADk_4dTXt8
I hate the fact that the Daily Mail turned what is Jambo and Mongo displaying their dominance to the group into them "starting a brawl" and their genuine condition into "stress-related".
If you look carefully, there is actually no biting or scratching of any sort in this interaction, which is chiefly just vocal. I think even the visible scratch on (is it?) Mongo's back was there beforehand anyway. It is good to see these two bizarre-looking Chimps at least enjoying normal social interactions. How do they stop them passing on their genetic defect though- are all the females currently contracepted or what?
No but the males are. Only male that I'm aware of that isn't sterilised in the group is Kibali, the western chimpanzee. Of the other four, I know that Jambo, Mongo and Jomar definitely are sterilised. Don't know about Flynn. And if he has an enlarged throat pouch then it's Mongo
Yeah vasectomised And as for pure females, I know that Coco, Choppers, Noddy, Tojo, Samantha and Josie are all of a subspecies. Tojo is P.t.schweinfurthii, and Josie is P.t.verus. Don't know about the others (one other P.t.schweinfurthii apparently) or if any of the other six ladies are of a subspecies.
And I'm not sure which of the other males in the group of six have been vasectomised, but William definitely has been.
verus female Chimps at Twycross. This has been discussed on here a few months back- but at that time only five females were listed as 'verus'. From memory they were Coco, Choppers, Noddy, Josie and.. a.n.other. (I thought it was Jolly who died recently at the same time as Kip). I wonder which list is correct?
That would make sense; as Samantha looks more like she'd be a schweinfurthii than a verus...I'm waiting to hear from a contact who has a copy of the studbook. However, this does mean that only Josie is young enough to breed successfully now; as Coco, Choppers and Noddy were born in approximately 1965, 1970 and 1972!!
Coco would by my reckoning now be 51, and the other two only slightly younger. Also from those previous discussions I believe one of them was stated as having had a hysterectomy, and the other never raised her young. If the studbook you are referring to is the same 2009 one you mentioned before, remember its likely the DNA testing for subspecies may have been carried out more recently.
I hope this helps. Coco - verus Choppers - verus (neut) Noddy - verus Rosie - hybrid Tojo - Schweinfurthii Charlotte - hybrid Samantha - Schweinfurthii Jambo - hybrid William - hybrid (neut) Holly - hybrid Flynn - hybrid Josie - verus Victoria - hybrid Jomar - hybrid (neut) Peter - hybrid (neut) Mongo - hybrid Tommy - ? (neut) Genet - hybrid Danny Boy - hybrid Tuli - hybrid Kibali - verus
This ties with the original list of 'verus' females, except 'Jolly' who was the fifth and is no longer alive. Of the four others, it seems only 'Josie' might still be of breeding age, giving them effectively just one pair of 'verus'.(Kibali/Josie) Mongo(or Jambo either) certainly does not appear neutered on the video. Vasectomised presumably. I wonder if the other non-verus females are also contracepted to prevent further crossbreeding and production of non-pure babies?
apologies I've corrected Mongo being down as (neut) misread the line in the studbook & yeah I came to pretty much the same conclusion re possible verus breeders.
A pity any of the hybrids are hybrids really. If they seriously want to concentrate on 'verus' they might need to bring in another couple of suitable aged pure 'verus' females in time, though for Twycross to actually need any more chimps might seem unlikely, while integrating them in the existing larger group might be difficult in the current accomodation.