Kanzi the ape builds fire, roasts marshmallows; video screen grab
Kanzi, a 33-year-old ape residing at the Primate Learning Center in Iowa, has been featured several times for his astonishing linguistic aptitude.
But it appears that the easygoing bonobo also has developed a sweet tooth, which, like so many humans, he satisfies by roasting and eating marshmallows.
The Animal Planet on Thursday tweeted a video clip from its new TV special, “The Real Apes of the Planet,” which debuted this week. The footage shows Kanzi building and lighting a fire, placing marshmallows on a long stick, and roasting them to his taste.
He then savors his treat, washes it down with a sip of bottled water, and extinguishes the fire.
“For another primate to master something so human shows us just how similar we are,” the video narrator says. “It breaks down the final barrier that separates us from them.”
To be sure, Kanzi is no ordinary ape, having grown up in a captive but spacious setting in “a bi-cultural world of bonobos and humans.”
But the actions of this alpha-male bonobo, nonetheless, reveal a high level of intelligence and might give people a greater appreciation of the world’s primates.
Concludes the narrator: “Being able to light and control fire was one of the sparks that ignited human evolution.”
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