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Spy Cameras Highlight a Day in the Life of a Chimpanzee

John Downer Productions Ltd. / BBC
A chimpanzee playing with a genet kitten

Chimpanzees are human's closest living animal relatives. They share 99 percent of human DNA and quite a bit of behavior, both positive and negative.

On this Talk of Iowa segment, Charity Nebbe speaks with primatologist and anthropology professor at Iowa State University, Jill Pruetz. For the last sixteen years she has studied the lives of Savanna chimpanzees in Fongoli, Senegal, and these chimps are featured in the new BBC series, Spy in the Wild, premiering tonight at 7 p.m. CST on Iowa Public Television.

Pruetz gives a preview of the chimp behavior the spy cameras caught for the series, and she discusses the findings of her recently published paper on the lethal aggression between chimps, highlighted by the killing of the Fongoli chimp's former alpha leader.

Tags
Animal ScienceEnvironment
Charity Nebbe is the host of IPR's Talk of Iowa