Primates Life


Primates

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In the great Tree of Life,

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one branch of the mammals has a particular fascination for us, for we belong to it.

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Primates.

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Primate hands provide a firm grip.

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And forward facing eyes accurately assess distance.

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Both are crucial for a lifestyle that began in the trees.

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Intelligence among primates can excel that of all other animals.

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Primates can solve difficult problems...

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..develop thoughts and ideas...

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..and build long-lasting relationships.

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But most importantly, primates remember what they learn during their lives.

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This film reveals how intelligence helps our closest relatives to tackle the many challenges of life.

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There are more than 350 primate species on Earth.

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Since they first appeared over 65 million years ago,

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these clever animals have become adapted to an extraordinary range of habitats.

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The Awash region of southern Ethiopia.

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A harsh, remote scrubland.

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But primates have learned how to make it their home.

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Hamadryas baboons are waking up from a night spent high on the cliffs.

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These monkeys live in groups up to four hundred strong, with no single leader.

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Theirs is a very complex society, made up of dozens of small harems, each governed by a male.

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Every morning they leave the safety of the cliffs to find food.

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Top-ranking males lead the way.

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They can be very severe with their females if there is the slightest misdemeanour.

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Despite their individual strength, hamadryas baboons prefer to travel as a troop.

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It's safer that way.

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On this particular morning, something stops them in their tracks.

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Another troop is using these cliffs as a barracks.

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More than a thousand baboons can overnight here.

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And a rival faction is heading directly their way.

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In the chaos of warfare, males settle old scores.

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This is also their best chance of stealing females.

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When the fighting is over, the harems reform.

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Lead males punish any of their females who had dared to stray.

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Strict discipline is essential if order is to be maintained.

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It's a harsh social system

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but it works for hamadryas baboons here on these arid plains.

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In other parts of the world, primates have had to organise

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their societies in a different way to cope with different challenges.

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Mid-winter in the Japanese Alps.

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The Kamicoche Valley is the haunt of the most northerly-dwelling monkeys.

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To live here you must be able to survive temperatures which plunge to minus 20 centigrade.

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The Japanese macaque.

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Dense thick layers of fur help to insulate these snow moneys in this testing environment.

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But they still feel the cold.

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At this time of the year, food is scarce.

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But macaques are adaptable and clever.

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The troop has learnt that this river stays ice-free the year round.

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This female knows it's a good place to gather insect larvae

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from under the rocks, using her versatile hands and nimble fingers.

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In winter, this troop spends most of its time searching for food.

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The same underground forces that prevent this river from freezing

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bring great comfort to others.

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The Japanese Alps were built by volcanoes.

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Many of them are still active.

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And in a region called Hell's Valley, some snow monkeys have found the perfect winter resort.

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A thermal spa,

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where the water temperature is a blissful 41 degrees centigrade.

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Everyone wants in, but primates being primates,

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there are pool-side politics.

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This is an exclusive members-only club.

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INFANT SCREECHES

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Only the highest-ranking females and infants are allowed in.

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Everyone obeys this male, who guards the pool and vets the entrants.

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These youngsters, born of the right bloodline, don't know how privileged they are.

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Lower ranking individuals are literally left out in the cold.

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Japanese macaque society is very divided.

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There are those that have.

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And those that have not.

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And that is a harsh division, because the sixty degrees that separate the steaming water

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from the freezing surroundings

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can make the difference between life and death.

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But by far the majority of primate species

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live in warm tropical forests.

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Among them are the largest of all.

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Gorillas live in stable family groups with just a single leader,

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a silverback male.

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This one, here in the Congo basin, is the guardian of his family

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which includes five females and their infants.

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He has the responsibility of protecting them from the dangers

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that abound on the forest floor where they feed.

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To sustain his huge size, he must consume up to thirty kilos a day.

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It's mostly plant food, but western gorillas also enjoy a sprinkling of termites.

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The youngsters need to eat far less than their father, so they've got time on their hands.

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They like to play for the same reasons we do...for fun.

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And it helps build long-lasting relationships.

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Their protector keeps a watchful eye on them.

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But then...

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..it's time for his siesta.

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DISTANT GRUNTING

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Something shatters the peace.

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This silverback's territory is one of the best.

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But it has borders with at least eight other gorilla groups.

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DISTANT GRUNTING AND CHEST BEATING

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The sound of chest-beating travels more than a mile through the tangled under-storey.

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It's a territorial drum-beat.

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Everyone must know who is boss around here.

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Other smaller primates are rather more secretive.

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One of the most unusual is found in Sulawesi, Indonesia.

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It lives among the aerial roots of this strangler fig.

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Its ancestors were daytime hunters, but they found that there was less

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competition if they looked for food in the twilight.

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Now they only stir after dark.

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Nonetheless there's a lot of insect food around.

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The spectral tarsier.

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Tarsiers are the only totally carnivorous primates on Earth.

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They've hardly changed in 45 million years.

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Their huge eyes can see in even the faintest light.

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These eye-balls are so wide they can't swivel in their sockets -

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tarsiers have to rotate their heads.

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Their mobile ears can detect the faintest sounds.

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And their powerful legs enable them to jump 40 times their own length.

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The family group fans out to hunt.

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Prey is not hard to find.

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But the tarsiers must be watchful.

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For a primate just five inches tall, life in the forest is full of danger.

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-The male sounds the alarm.

-CHIRPING

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And everyone retreats.

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SHRILL CHIRPING CALLS

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Back in their family tree, the senior male and female send out piercing calls.

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These calls guide any stragglers home,

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and there they renew the family bonds.

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Good communication is one of the hallmarks of primate society.

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WHOOPING CALLS

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Few communicate more musically than lar gibbons

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in the forests of Thailand.

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RHYTHMIC WHOOPING

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Their songs carry for many miles across the canopy,

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proclaiming that this piece of forest is theirs.

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Most primates have excellent colour vision, and colour too can be used in communication.

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Adult Phayre's leaf monkeys might seem rather drab.

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But not so their newborn.

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Bright orange fur makes the babies very conspicuous,

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so the adults can easily keep an eye on them.

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Close friends and relatives are eager to help the mother with baby-sitting.

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It's a good chance for the younger ones to practice parenting.

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As a result, a baby is never left on its own for long.

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When it's a few months old and more independent,

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it will turn the colour of its mother and blend in with the group.

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But until then, it can't be ignored.

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Smell is of particular importance to the primates that live in Madagascar -

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the lemurs.

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They have pointed snouts and wet noses.

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These are ringtail lemurs.

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The males have sharp pads on their wrists with which they scratch the trunks of young trees.

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Glands on their wrists impregnate the cut bark with a pungent smell that acts as a territorial marker.

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Females make smelly marks in their own way.

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This one's scent carries another signal as well as the territorial one.

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It tells males that she's coming in to heat.

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But she will only be sexually receptive for 24 hours or less.

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So tensions run high among the males.

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Amid the commotion, some males sneak off.

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They have anointed their tails with scent and waft it towards her in an attempt to persuade her to mate.

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She's ready...

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but fussy.

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This male adds more of his wrist gland perfume to his tail.

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It seems to work, for they leave the party together.

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And he wafts his way to victory.

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A willingness to mate is a relatively straightforward message.

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But primates are capable of much more complex communication.

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It starts between a mother and her baby.

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The rainforests of Sumatra.

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This female orang-utan is forty-two years old.

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Her third child, a six year old daughter, is still with her.

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Orangs look after their children for longer than any other primate...

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except ourselves.

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It will take her nine years to teach her youngster

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everything she needs to know about this complex tree-top world.

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She must learn how to collect ants and termites.

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How to identify at least 200 kinds of edible plants...

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and how to avoid the poisonous ones.

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And how to judge when fruit, like this durian,

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has ripened to perfection.

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Her child must be able to judge which branches can carry her weight.

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And which insect nests are safe to raid.

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Building up a complete guide to the foods of the forest is a long process.

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Her lessons, of course, aren't limited to food.

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There are other crucial skills she must learn if she is to survive in the tree tops.

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Building a secure nest in which to spend the night, for example, takes years of practice.

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And this is, of course, a rainforest.

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THUNDER RUMBLES

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So all orangs must learn how to make a shelter early in their lives.

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It rains almost every day, so this six year old has already had plenty of practice.

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She might live to be fifty years old and if she too becomes a mother,

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she'll pass on all this expertise to her own children.

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Remembering your lessons is a vital part of primate life.

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It's not just learning how to exploit your environment.

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Just as important is knowing when to do so.

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This is Africa's Cape peninsula.

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It's the furthest south that monkeys have managed to settle.

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There's a wide range of plant food here, but because the soil is so poor in nutrients,

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Chacma baboons find it difficult to get the range of sustenance they need,

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however much they eat.

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So they have had to become quite adventurous in what they will tackle.

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The waters around the Cape are among the richest in the world.

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And the wily baboons have become tidal experts.

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If you rely on the tides to expose your food, you have to work to fairly tight schedules.

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Every two weeks, on the lowest spring tide, there's a chance to collect something really special.

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What they've been waiting for is hidden among the fronds of seaweed.

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Shark eggs.

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Each one is only a tiny mouthful, but there are lots of them

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and they're so nutritious it's worth the trouble.

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But the baboons can't stay long...

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the tide is turning.

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So now they switch their attention to the main course of the day... mussels.

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This delicacy is exposed every day, by every tide.

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Baboons have powerful jaws and huge canines...

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ideal for cracking shells.

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Timing is an essential skill if you are to harvest

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all the food that becomes available at one time or another around a coast.

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Some foods, however, are only available to those who have skilful hands and sharp intelligence.

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On the coast of Costa Rica, among the mangroves,

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live some of the most intelligent monkeys in the whole of the Americas.

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White-faced capuchins.

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They too have learnt to work the tides.

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They are after clams.

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But capuchins are quite small and don't have the brawn to open such shellfish.

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But they do have the brain,

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and they've devised an ingenious way to solve the problem.

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They hammer the clams.

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They are not trying to crack the shells, all this pounding

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and rolling has another purpose, to tire the muscle with which the clam is holding itself shut.

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Eventually the clam can hold out no longer,

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and the capuchin gets its reward.

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Trial and error may have been sufficient to solve this particular problem.

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But one of their cousins in Brazil has taken things a step further.

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Brown-tufted capuchins combine manual dexterity with considerable intelligence.

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And they have learned to use tools, hammer stones with which to open palm nuts.

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Some of the stones are nearly half the weight of the monkey.

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Without a tool, opening these nuts would be an impossible task.

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Tool-using was a major breakthrough in primate evolution.

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And nowhere is it more convincingly displayed than here in the forest of Bossou in Guinea, West Africa.

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PANTING AND WHOOPING

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Chimpanzees in this small community of thirteen individuals use tools in a variety of ways.

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The most delicate is the way they use a twig or leaf stem

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to dip for ants.

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Some of their skills are unique to this particular group.

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One of these involves stripping a palm leaf frond

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and using it like a pestle to mash up the nutritious palm heart.

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This four-year old is learning fast.

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She needs to.

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If chimpanzees haven't learned particular skills by the age of 8,

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they never seem able to acquire them.

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The most impressive skill of all, which involves nimble fingers,

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hand-eye coordination and intelligence, is nut cracking.

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Chimpanzees have gone a stage further than capuchins.

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They have learned how to carefully position the nut on an anvil and to judge how much force to use

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in order to crack the shell but not smash the kernel to pieces.

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Their use of tools is both efficient and precise.

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This eleven year old female has an anvil, but can't find a hammer.

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She approaches a male to see if he will lend her his.

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He obliges.

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Chimpanzees can show great kindness

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and compassion.

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Sharing.

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Experimenting.

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Empathy.

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Planning.

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Intelligence.

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Teaching, and learning.

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Behaviour so characteristic of us higher primates.

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We are the most inventive and innovative of all primates.

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Just one branch of a large and extended family.

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A family which has refined the ability

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to develop and pass on individual learning to the next generation.

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A family which is built on strong bonds between mother and baby.

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A family with which we share so much.

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To film the very best primate behaviour,

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the Life team had to use all their primate ingenuity and adaptability.

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And in doing so, they discovered an extraordinary affinity with our extended family.

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Especially with a great ape with who we share almost 99% of our genes,

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the Chimpanzee.

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He was completely asleep just then, so you just, just rocking to the side as if he might just fall off

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the branch, you could see his lips were twitching like he was in a deep dream, that was really beautiful.

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Chimpanzees are our closest relatives.

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Justine Evans spent almost a month with them in the forest of Guinea to film their use of tools.

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The chimps have disappeared off down there,

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they're gonna cross over into another area of forest and hopefully start using some tools.

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Go and use tools, that's what we're here for.

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Chimpanzees have to accept you.

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If they don't want to be filmed, they'll simply disappear.

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Justine needed the expert guidance of Tatyana Humle, a primatologist

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who's spent more than ten years studying these individuals.

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So when we see them always keep calm and don't stare straight into the eyes.

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Have you ever had problems with them coming right up being aggressive?

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No, never, never. I mean it's pretty rare, so...

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I don't know what to expect cos I've never seen them in the wild before so it's a first for me.

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So just always stay, stay calm and if one of them walks by really close, just ignore them.

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One particular young male might throw sticks,

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ignore him as well, it's like he's like a kid

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and he just wants attention so he'll just keep doing it.

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We've got to put these face masks on in case we pass on any infectious diseases.

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Quite a few chimps have died in the past from respiratory diseases

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in other study sites, so it's very important.

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Justine was finding her way with the chimps.

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But it would take time.

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It's never easy anticipating their behaviour.

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I'm trying to get ready really quickly because we're expecting

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some chimps to come down the path straight ahead of me.

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It'd be lovely if they'd merge out into this clearing,

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cos it's really difficult to see through all this foliage.

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Tatyana and her team were invaluable,

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they introduced Justine to the chimps' different habits and characters.

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Soon the natural inquisitiveness of the chimps overcame any worries they might have had of Justine.

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In fact, they seemed fascinated by her, and the tools of her trade.

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But it was their use of tools that Justine was here to film.

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And this was her first good opportunity.

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As I filmed them fishing for ants I was amazed by their dexterity.

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But holding focus in such low light really tested my own coordination to the limit.

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Now she's moving away.

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She's moving.

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It's been all go today, it's not over yet,

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if we can get out of here into an open,

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more open area we'll actually have enough light to film by

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cos the sun's still up, but I don't know.

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Although Justine's main goal was to film tool use,

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there was another piece of behaviour she really wanted to capture.

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Buttress root drumming had never been filmed here before but she was always just a bit too late.

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Back at yet another buttress in the hope that we might

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get some sort of buttress drumming, but it's started raining

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which is an absolute pain.

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It's a waiting game.

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Just staking out a couple of really big trees that have got very large buttress roots

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in the hope that a male will come down and drum on them.

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The drumming always happens somewhere else, and apparently,

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it's usually the males that sort of sneak off to go and do it,

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it feels like a bit of a long shot at the moment.

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I've have to have some patience.

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The thing about chimps is that, like most primates, you can't always predict

0:54:360:54:40

what they're going to do, when they're going to do it, or where.

0:54:400:54:45

You've just got to keep with them.

0:54:480:54:52

A different type of sound brought Justine back to her main mission.

0:54:540:55:00

CRACKING

0:55:000:55:03

Nut cracking.

0:55:090:55:11

This was the key sequence Justine was here to film.

0:55:180:55:22

Filming the chimps using tools made me realise just how close to them we are.

0:55:310:55:35

I felt so similar to them.

0:55:440:55:48

By the end of our filming trip I was able to recognise

0:55:570:56:00

most of the individuals in the group and had begun to understand their different personalities.

0:56:000:56:05

For me, the most poignant moment of all

0:56:340:56:36

was when the male the scientist called Clay lent a female his tools.

0:56:360:56:41

I know that primates are very social animals

0:56:500:56:53

but seeing this act of generosity was something that I'll never forget.

0:56:530:56:56

DRUMMING AND WHOOPING God, buttress drumming.

0:57:090:57:13

Just before we left, the chimpanzees finally put on the display that I'd been hoping for.

0:57:130:57:18

WHOOPING

0:57:270:57:29

DRUMMING

0:57:290:57:31

In the great Tree of Life,

0:57:570:57:59

we and chimpanzees went our separate ways about six million years ago,

0:57:590:58:03

but they remain our closest living relatives.

0:58:030:58:08

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