Behaviors Cont.

We viewed our first chimp yesterday!  Yesterday our note-taking focused on physical description and behaviors that we observed.  At the end of class yesterday, we reflected on our observations as a class.  Students pointed out some excellent physical descriptions focusing on adjectives that gave an excellent visual image of the chimpanzee some of the following are my favorites:

• frumped, hunched and slouchy to describe their walking appearance
• wrinkly faces
• Long, muscular arms with shorter bowed legs
• coarse, thin hair covering most of their body except their face and palms of their hands and feet
• no tail!

We also observed some behaviors and interactions between the chimpanzees and baboons.

• They love to play!  Their play looks like: chasing, wrestling, somersaults, climbing trees (looking like climbing a ladder), swinging in trees, playing "king of the mountain" in the tree and throwing other monkeys out
• We also observed mother/child relationships - children cling to the mothers back and front side to travel, children observe mothers behaviors to learn new things
• Also the alpha male - Frodo- is the leader of the community.  Frodo rules with brute force.  The other chimps in the community show respect to Frodo by participating in social grooming, which is the process when the chimps pick through the hair looking for and removing bugs.

At the start of class today, students are going to participate in a quick write journal entry to create both a visual description of the chimpanzee and describe one behavior they observed yesterday.

While watching the video today, we are going to continue to focus on behaviors and look out for the chimpanzees role in the food web of this community.