A Twisted Family Tree

I come from a strange lineage. I don’t mean my immediate bloodline, although my brother and sisters are pretty weird in all the right ways. I mean my tailless primate lineage, the apes. I’ve had a chance to meet many of them throughout the years: White-handed Gibbons in Thailand, Buff-cheeked Gibbons in Cambodia, Orangutans in Borneo, Western Lowland Gorillas in The Congo, Mountain Gorillas in Rwanda, and Chimpanzees in Uganda.

I’ve never met a Cross River Gorilla, Eastern Lowland Gorilla, or Bonobo, and probably never will given the political instability in their homelands. Although, I’d be happy to share my food with a friendly Bonobo.

I did have the chance to meet my distant cousin Lucy at the Bower’s Museum in California a few years back. A lovely woman, but a bit small brained if you ask me. Although she can’t really be blamed, as all Australopithecus afarensis were a bit small brained by modern standards.

In regards to the apes I have met, we’re not really all that closely related. Our common ancestor lived about seven million years ago. One day, Selanthropus chadensis went out for a pack of cigarettes, and here I am today, a Homo sapiens. Each of my distant relatives also went their own ways for their own reasons. I’m guessing they weren’t all smokers, although many did go extinct through out the years before we ended up with the five extant groups we have today.

The last family reunion was a blast. The Chimpanzees just sat in the corner and brooded, like they always do, but the Orangutans were hilarious when charades began. The Gibbon matriarch brought her harem of males, drank too much, and started swinging from the chandelier. The Silver back gorilla and his harem ate all the salad, stole the fruit cake, and fled. No one really cared about the fruit cake, but everyone missed the gorillas’ sign language skills during charades. By the time the party was over, the humans had shot a few relatives, destroyed the house, and threatened nuclear Armageddon when the orangutans got to choose the game. Humans have been uninvited from the next reunion.

This is not an ape. An imp, perhaps, but not an ape. It has a tail. Imps and monkeys both have tails, so there is really no way to tell them apart.

This is, also, not an ape. Looking at it, I’m thinking, maybe it’s a werewolf.

This is not an ape. Don’t beat yourself up if you got it wrong. People often confuse birds for apes.

If it helps to move you in the right direction, one of the defining features of primates is that they have nails instead of claws. Well, the Aye-Aye has both, but lemurs are just weird.

“Hey, what’s that over there. Is that a human? I thought we disinvited them.”

Baby gorilla. I’ve got nothing to say about this photo. What is there to say? It’s a baby gorilla.

This is not a baby gorilla. In this species, you can usually tell the babies from the adults because the babies, when they are born, are often a bit smaller than the adults.

When new babies are born into habituated Gorilla groups, they have a naming ceremony. Usually, names are chosen by the local community based on the baby’s behaviors. They named the one on the right Chuck, and the one on the left Roy. Weird coincidence, that’s my and my brother’s names. Not really sure why they chose those names.

This is Devon’s first time appearing on the cover of Vogue.

And now, a brief photographic interlude to honor the small things.

Back to our regular programming, this is the Silver Back that leads the gorilla group we visited in Rwanda.

“Maybe playing with this vine wasn’t such a good idea.”

“Maybe trying to climb this broken piece of bamboo wasn’t such a good idea.”

“Maybe you need to think!”

I know I’m not supposed to anthropomorphize, but it sure looks like this gorilla’s laughing.

No comment. I just liked this picture.

“If you take my picture one more time…”

This guy crashed the reunion after it was over. Vultures are always late to the party.