Chimpanzees are great apes and genetically closer to people than they are even to gorillas. Chimps laugh, they have best friends, cuddle their infants and become rebellious adolescents. Each has its own special personality. They are a highly intelligent, politically sophisticated species.
Chimps make tools, hunt cooperatively and in the wild they travel through vast territories.
They live up to 60 years. Surrogate Humans Chimpanzees are not only similar to human beings in their behavior. Physically our two species are so alike that chimps have served as models for human infectious diseases in biomedical research. In the early years of the space program chimpanzees were sent into orbit to gauge the effects on humans. Today, there are over 1,600 chimpanzees in laboratories.