Ape

VHS cover

*Ape* is the third episode of the second season of Eyewitness. The topic of this episode concerns the lives of all primates including apes, monkeys and prosimians, as well as their links to humans. The episode aired on 29th April 1996.

*Ape* is based on a book that was first published in 1995 under the title of *Gorilla, Monkey and Ape*, and has been republished in 1997 and 2000.

## Episode

### Introductory sequence

The hero, a young chimpanzee, tears through a blanket with paper tearing noises before running towards the camera and investigating it with hooting sounds; the chimp leaves the screen and the title sequence begins.

### Episode outline

Click here for the full transcript for Ape.

The episode introduces the primates as our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. The family consists of around 200 species, split between the primitive and higher primates. They range in size from the giant mountain gorilla to the tiny mouse lemur.

All primates have three things in common – agile hands with grasping fingers, forward-facing eyes and the largest brain relative to body size of any land animal. The hero of the episode, a young chimpanzee, is introduced – when she grows up she will be a powerful animal well able to defend herself and will be quick both on the ground and in the trees.

Most primates are tree-dwellers living in forests in Southeast Asia, South America or Central Africa. Others have adapted to live on plains or high mountains while the human lives all over the planet. In evolutionary terms, we split from the chimp about 7 million years ago but still have 99.4% of our DNA in common, making us closer to chimps than zebras are to horses. A Cameroon myth describes how chimps are crosses between humans and monkeys.

Chimps live in large groups that groom to reinforce social bonds and regularly squabble among themselves. Squirrel monkeys gain mutual protection from living in big communities, always looking out for danger. Baboons on the African plain must constantly scan for danger; if a predator is sighted the males form a posse to scare it off. Our chimp could also see off most predators with help from her troop.

The next section looks at primate communication. African vervet monkeys have an elaborate early warning system, with six different calls each signifying a different predator. The howler monkey has a resonating chamber to help it amplify its calls, so they can be heard three kilometres away. Legend says the alarm calls of Barbary macaques on the Rock of Gibraltar warned of a Spanish invasion and so the monkeys became symbols of the British presence there, and were regularly restocked.

Gorillas are the next animal to be encountered, and their social behaviour is outlined. They live in groups ruled by a silverback male, who will fight to defend his position as dominant animal.

The only solitary higher primate is the orangutan. The word orangutan means 'man of the forest' in Malay. There are many myths about these creatures, with many considering them to either be twisted versions of humans or the spirits of their ancestors.

The next section looks at primate infancy. Chimpanzees and silver leaf monkeys both have bold-coloured youngsters to make it easier for the adults to spot them. Young primates are born with the ability to hang on, with one of Aescop's Fables about the ape and its twins included. Marmosets normally have twins, and the adults share childcare between them. Young gorillas change from clinging to their mother's belly to riding on her back.

The young chimp now reaches adolescence and leaves to find a new troop. A fictional account of a monkey going on a journey comes from 'Monkey', a piece of Chinese classical literature. The primate who truly touched the heavens was Ham, the chimp astronaut who became the first primate in space.

Chimpanzees build nests to sleep during the night. Other primates wake up as the sun goes down - tarsiers are nocturnal predatory primates, which may have inspired the Australian yara-ma-ya-who from stories imported by Malayan settlers. Lemurs are primates separated on Madagascar from monkeys and apes, and include among their number the bizarre aye-aye, the ring-tailed lemur and the indri. The story of how the indri got its name after a misunderstanding is mentioned - the indri is named after the local word for 'there it is'.

The young chimp fends for itself, eating a range of foods including meat. Baboons can also be predatory. Chimps have also learned to eat medicinal plants. The myths of killer primates are explored here, with the original stories of a monstrous killer ape in Africa being linked to the vegetarian gorilla. There are still myths of ferocious primates around the world, including the Batutut in Borneo, the Pongo in Zaire and the yeti in the Himalayas. The bonobo was thought to be mythical until it was discovered in 1929. They live in similar communities to chimps, but are slimmer and more human-like in appearance, with early myths describing them as a race of tiny people.

Primate locomotion is showcased. Only humans are adapted for walking upright. Apes practice knuckle-walking, while most other primates are ill-adapted to walking on the ground. Many New World monkeys have a prehensile tail that can be used to grip branches. A story from the Philippines tells how the monkey came to have its useful tail, when the god Bathala made a mistake while sculpting a man from clay. The agility of monkeys has been utilised, with capuchins serving as dancers for organ-grinders and macaques used to harvest coconuts. Monkeys use their agility to their own purposes, for raiding crops. Hanuman langurs were said to have got their black faces and hands after being burned by a giant, while the god Hanuman used his agility to help defeat a demon.

Gibbons are the true masters of treetop acrobatics, moving with a hand-over-hand motion called brachiation. Gibbons are sometimes victims of forgetting to look before they leap, and will sometimes fall to the ground while swinging.

At the sacred stable in Nikko, Japan, statues of three monkeys remind passers-by of the Buddhist motto ‘hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil’. Our chimp hero needs all of the primate’s special abilities such as forward-facing eyes, colour vision and the opposable thumb. Chimps can also use tools – they use sticks to fish for ants and termites, chew leaves to collect rainwater from hollows and crack nuts with rocks.

Hand, eye and brain coordination can best be seen in humans, which have created all kinds of tools. Primates can learn but also teach new stills – Japanese macaques on Kushima Islet learned to wash wheat and sweet potatoes in the sea. Despite the similarities, many people didn't believe Charles Darwin when he suggested that humans were descended from something like the apes. Sometimes the similarity between primates and humans has bizarre consequences, such as a story from the Anglo-French war when a circus ship wrecked off Hartlepool. The sole survivor, a monkey, was mistaken for a French spy by the local people who put the monkey on trial and hanged it.

At last, our young chimp finds a new community. She will need all her social skills and starts from the bottom of the pecking order. But if she produces offspring, her knowledge and skills will be passed on to the next generation.

## Animal species filmed for the programme

### Studio footage

* Chimpanzee, *Pan troglodytes*
* Siamang, *Symphalangus syndactylus*
* Western lowland gorilla, *Gorilla gorilla gorilla*
* Plains zebra, *Equus quagga*
* Domestic horse, *Equus ferus caballus*
* Ant, *Formicidae*
* Lar gibbon, *Hylobates lar*

### Stock footage

* Mountain gorilla, *Gorilla beringei beringei*
* De Brazza’s guenon, *Cercopithecus neglectus*
* Bald uakari, *Cacajao calvus*
* Mandrill, *Mandrillus sphinx*
* Verreaux’s sifaka, *Propithecus verreauxi*
* Vervet monkey, *Chlorocebus pygerythrus*
* Japanese macaque, *Macaca fuscata*
* Mouse lemur, *Microcebus sp*.
* Southern muriqui, *Brachyteles arachnoides*
* Olive baboon, *Papio anubis*
* Tana River mangabey, *Cercocebus galeritus*
* Chimpanzee, *Pan troglodytes*
* Grey wolf, *Canis lupus*
* African bush elephant, *Loxodonta africana*
* Bolivian squirrel monkey, *Saimiri boliviensis*
* South American squirrel monkey, *Saimiri sciureus*
* Reticulated python, *Malayopython reticulatus*
* Martial eagle, *Polemaetus bellicosus*
* Lion, *Panthera leo*
* African rock python, *Python sebae*
* Red howler monkey, *Alouatta seniculus*
* Barbary macaque, *Macaca sylvanus*
* Sumatran orangutan, *Pongo abelii*
* Bornean orangutan, *Pongo pygmaeus*
* Silver leaf monkey, *Trachypithecus cristatus*
* Brown capuchin monkey, *Sapajus apella*
* Common marmoset, *Callithrix jacchus*
* Sulawesi tarsier, *Tarsius spectrum*
* Aye-aye, *Daubentonia madagascariensis*
* Ring-tailed lemur, *Lemur catta*
* Golden bamboo lemur, *Hapalemur aureus*
* Collared lemur, *Eulemur collaris*
* Indri, *Indri indri*
* Chacma baboon, *Papio ursinus*
* Bonobo, *Pan paniscus*
* Long-tailed macaque, *Macaca fascicularis*
* Sunda pig-tailed macaque, *Macaca nemestrina*
* Hanuman langur, *Semnopithecus dussumieri*
* Lar gibbon, *Hylobates lar*

## Stock footage sources

Africa Screams (1949) – Black-and-white gorilla movie

Life on Earth: Life in the Trees (1979) - Multiple clips: Indri, tarsier, common marmoset, squirrel monkey, red howler monkey, uakari, mandrill, lion, olive baboon, Barbary and Japanese macaques, silver leaf monkey, Bornean orangutan on ground, mountain gorilla, chimpanzee

Natural World

* Through Animal Eyes (1985) - Tarsier eating insect
* Masked Monkeys (1986) – De Brazza’s guenon
* Search for the Yeti (1988) - Himalayas, yeti footprints

Trials of Life: Finding Food (1990) – Muriqui swinging in trees

Wildlife on One

* Gremlins of the Night (1994) – Collared lemur, aye-aye, tarsier eating gecko, reticulated python
* Orang Utans Out on a Limb (1994) - Sumatran orangutans

## Credits

* Director - Ludo Graham
* Producer - Richard Thomson
* Writer - David Stafford
* Music- Guy Dagul
* Graphics Director - Dean Stockton
* Graphics Design - Stan Peplinski
* Camera - Sean Bobbitt and Matthew Poynter
* Set Design - John Brace and Mark Dadswell
* Production Co-ordinator - Nicola Melluish
* Production Assistants - Tilly Colaco and Quin Jessop
* Researcher - Kate Bartlett
* Archive Researchers - Philippa Graves and Anuschka de Rohan
* Graphics - Simon Kilroe, Kim Aldis and Kate Hood
* Editors
	+ Offline - Nick Scullard
	+ Online - David Smith
* Dubbing Mixer - Steve Cookman
* Special thanks to:
	+ NASA

## Making this programme

The making-of documentary for Ape begins with the crew heading to Twycross Zoo, where a disused building is converted into a complete studio with jungle plants and full lighting. This is because it was not possible to take the animal, the gorilla, to the actual Eyewitness studio. At first, the gorilla was a little shy of the cameras and unfamiliar environment, but soon its curiosity took over and it began to explore the set. To demonstrate the difference between human and chimpanzee skeletons, an image of a chimp skeleton was electronically morphed in the computer to turn into a human skeleton. Although the sequence is short, it takes hours to complete. Finally, this making-of shows how the objects used in Eyewitness are filmed. First, they are meticulously checked before they go in front of the camera. After filming, any supports or props that help the object to slowly turn must be removed in the computer so that the object appears clear and crisp in the Eyewitness style, in front of a white background.

## Errors and corrections

The image used to represent yara-ma-yha-who in the tarsier sequence is actually a coloured woodcut of a different Australian folklore creature, the yowie, taken from a November 1912 issue of the Sydney Sun newspaper.

## Home media releases

Ape has only ever been released on VHS. None of the three different DVD releases included this episode.

**Writing staff**: Anne MacLeod • Ben Southwell • Ben Steiner • Brian Meehl • David Hanson • David Stafford • David Helton • George Bloom • Lynette Singer • Mike Tomlinson • Paul Thomas • Stan Cullimore
**Directors**: Gavin Maxwell • Justine Kershaw • David Hutt • Andrew Jackson • Justin Hardy • Ludo Graham • Jerry Foulkes • Derek Hall • Sanjida O'Connell • Caius Julyan • Bonni Cohen • Leanne Pooley • Edwina Vardey • Alexandra Beazley • Sam Hodgkin • Karen Walsh • Jack Weber • Richard Simkin • Alex Hearle • Brian Cummins • Ben Southwell
**Composers**: Guy Michelmore (season one) • Guy Dagul (seasons two and three)

**Season One**: Cat • Fish • Horse • Dog • Jungle • Bird • Amphibian • Insect • Shark • Elephant • Reptile • Dinosaur • Skeleton
**Season Two**: Desert • Tree • **Ape** • Mammal • Butterfly and Moth • Volcano • Rock and Mineral • Seashore • Pond and River • Weather • Arctic and Antarctic • Prehistoric Life • Shell
**Season Three**: Flight • Bear • Sight • Island • Survival • Mountain • Monster • Human Machine - Plant • Ocean • Planets • Life • Natural Disasters