Hobbies And Interests
Intelligence
By human standards of intelligence, chimps are widely regarded as among the brainiest of mammals. In captivity, they've demonstrated impressive facilities adopting sign language and otherwise communicating in rudimentary fashion with human researchers. In the wild, their native intelligence is more firmly on display. They are among a very few non-human animals to both make and use tools: They strip twigs and grasses to "fish" for termites and ants, wield stones to smash open oil-palm nuts and threaten enemies with rocks and branches. When hunting monkeys like red colobus, they appear to implement complicated predatory strategies with distinct roles for various individuals.
Social Structure
Monkey hunting by chimps relies on another hallmark of their survival: sociability. Chimps live in large communities that occupy a given home range, but the whole group is rarely all together: Rather, the apes roam singly or in small units, foraging and, in the case of adult males, patrolling the margins of the territory. Young chimps take time to develop physically and emotionally, much like human children, and their older siblings and even unrelated troop members will assist in their upbringing. Their social nature helps chimpanzees not only locate and dispatch food, but also to ward off predators. Working together and employing their strength and intelligence, chimps have few natural enemies aside from big cats.
Diet
Chimpanzees eat a varied diet, a trait that allows them to survive in such different habitats as tropical rainforests, dry forests and open woodland-savannas. They keep tabs on the fruiting schedules of different trees within their home range; fruits and nuts are among their most important foods. They also nibble on fresh shoots, bark, gum and flowers. Unlike their more devotedly vegetarian cousins the gorillas, chimpanzees also regularly eat other animals: from insects to larger prey like monkeys, bushpigs and birds.
Tree-climbing
Chimps spend a lot of time on the ground, walking on front knuckles and hind feet, even occasionally resorting to limited bipedalism. They are also superb tree-climbers, equally adept at padding over the tops of branches or swinging acrobatically through the canopy. Much food-gathering is done in the treetops -- picking fruit and leaves, hunting monkeys -- but the arboreal zone also provides protection. Chimps build sleeping nests up in the branches for the night, a major survival strategy to minimize their exposure to leopards and lions.