Today, July 14, the whole world celebrates World Chimpanzee Day. Initially, this day was called "International Chimpanzee Day". In 2018, the name was changed to "World Chimpanzee Day".

The purpose of the holiday is to raise people's awareness of the importance of these amazing animals in the wild, to preserve the environment and to prevent the illegal trade of wild chimpanzees.

Although chimpanzees are the closest relatives of humans, they were still unknown in most countries of the world until Charles Darwin wrote about them in 1856. And only after a century, people began to recognize interesting facts from the life of these primates. The "first discoverer" of the secrets of chimpanzees was Dr. Jane Goodall, who began studying these apes in Gombe Stream National Park on July 14, 1960.

There are two types of chimpanzees in nature – the common chimpanzee and the bonobo. And each species needs protection. 100 years ago, Africa was inhabited by about two million of these primates, now their total number is around 350,000.

It has already become a good and old tradition to celebrate this day in Mykolaiv Zoo, because our zoo houses a group of common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) consisting of 5 individuals. The group is led by the oldest female named Ambi – she is 55 years old, the group also includes a 26-year-old female Aliti and her three children born in our zoo: Chilina (born in 2008), Ramina (born in 2012), Sherman (born in 2016).

Our chimpanzees are different in character. So, for example, Chilina is an active and quite communicative person, with character, jealous, a little coward and very fond of attention. Also, she is changeable in mood, and sometimes likes to be secluded. In her family, she behaves freely and casually. Chilina has a fondness for music and can even try to dance to the music depending on the mood (this was the observation made by the zoo staff).

Sherman is very active, he copies his behavior from his sisters. He likes to be scratched by zoo staff on his back and ears in the morning. Most often, he spends his free time with his middle sister Ramina, because she is closer to him in age. The most favorite food in the chimpanzee family is sweet fruits: bananas, dates and figs.

In honor of today's holiday, visitors who came to the zoo had the opportunity to take part in the demonstrative feeding of chimpanzees, which also took place with the participation of zoo young naturalists. So much attention and delicious fruit! Everyone was satisfied!

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