- Apes are not monkeys. Apes are larger, have fewer young (and spend
a longer time raising them), spend more time upright, and depend more
on their eyes than on their noses.
- And unlike monkeys, apes do not have tails.
- The most important difference is that apes are more intelligent than
monkeys. Their brains are larger and more developed, and apes can learn
and pass along information.
- Apes' hands are prehensile (capable of grasping things), and so are
their feet.
- Apes have flat fingernails and complicated fingerprints.
- Their bodies are designed to be most comfortable walking on all fours.
- Apes have arms longer than their legs, and walk on the knuckles of
their hands.
- All apes are forest dwellers and most spend at least some of the
time in trees.
- Except for adult gorillas, they can run along branches on all fours;
they are also able to move about by brachiation, or arm-over-arm swinging.
- Gibbons (including siamangs) are particularly adept at this type
of locomotion; the heavier orangutan prefers to grasp a neighboring
tree and pull itself across to it.
- Gorillas and chimpanzees are the most terrestrial of the apes, normally
traveling on all fours by leaning on the knuckles of their forelimbs
with the fingers of their hands curled under (knuckle-walking); orangutans
ball their fingers into fists during the short periods they walk.
- Most apes are able to walk on two feet for short distances.
- There are several species of apes known as Great apes.
- Species of apes construct nests to live in.
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