Lucy (chimpanzee)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lucy (1964–1987) was a chimpanzee belonging to the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma and raised by Maurice Temerlin , a psychotherapist and professor at the University of Oklahoma .

biography

Temerlin and his wife Jane treated Lucy like a human child. Temerlin taught her, for example, how to eat with silver cutlery, how to dress, how to leaf through magazines, and how to sit on a chair at the table. Lucy also learned American Sign Language from primatologist Roger Fouts as part of a monkey language project . She became famous through the Life journal, in which she was portrayed drinking gin , petting a cat and sexually stimulating herself with the help of a Playgirl notebook and a vacuum cleaner.

Fouts wrote that he came to Lucy every morning at 8:30 am, who greeted him with a hug , took a kettle, filled it with water, then found two cups and tea bags, poured the tea and served it.

When Lucy was twelve years old, the Temerlins could no longer care for her, and she was taken to the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project (CRP, a rehabilitation center for chimpanzees in Niokolo-Koba National Park , Senegal ), which is cared for by Eddie Brewer's daughter Stella Brewer has been. From there it was released ten years later in the River Gambia National Park in Gambia .

After about a year, Janis Carter, who had looked after Lucy during the release, found her skeleton, which was missing the skull and other body parts. Carter concluded that Lucy had fallen victim to poachers. However, due to the advanced state of decomposition, the cause of death could not be clarified.

Sign language

Lucy's awareness of her own existence was demonstrated, among other things, by watching her lie . Fouts asked the chimpanzee about a pile of chimpanzee droppings on the floor:

Fouts: WHAT THAT?
Lucy: WHAT THAT?
Fouts: YOU KNOW. WHAT THAT?
Lucy: DIRTY DIRTY.
Fouts: WHOSE DIRTY DIRTY?
Lucy: SUE (A student).
Fouts: IT NOT SUE. WHOSE THAT?
Lucy: ROGER!
Fouts: NO! NOT MINE. WHOSE?
Lucy: LUCY DIRTY DIRTY. SORRY LUCY.

literature

  • Maurice Temerlin: Lucy: Growing Up Human: A Chimpanzee Daughter in a Psychotherapists Family. 1976, ISBN 0-8314-0045-5
  • Roger Fouts, Stephen Tukel Mills: Our closest relatives. Learn from chimpanzees what it means to be human. Limes Verlag, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-8090-3013-9 (also published as paperback by Droemer Knaur in 2002, ISBN 3-426-77420-8 )
  • Steven Wise: Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals. Perseus Books, Cambridge 2000

Web links