Lucy the Chimpanzee

An experiment was held in 1966 with a chimpanzee to learn whether primates could be like humans. Could that distinction between human and animal be broken? Would the chimpanzee act civilized, would they be able to communicate, and would that sexual barrier between human and chimp be broken?

Lucy, a chimpanzee that was socialized with humans has her story told. Only two days old she was taken by her mother and given to a family named the Temerlins. As years pasted Lucy began to learn human ways. She wore clothes, ate with silverware at the dinner table, and even learned sign language. Lucy was so much like human she was sexually attracted to humans. At this stage the Temerlins introduced Lucy to her first male chimpanzee. She was afraid of the other chimp and was now literally separated from her own race. By the time Lucy was 12 years old she became very, very strong and destructive. The Temerlins gave Lucy to a University of Oklahoma psychology graduate student Janis Carter who took Lucy to Gambia for rehabilitation. The goal was to eventually release her into the wild. Lucy became depressed her human world now vanished. Janis stayed with Lucy in the wild for over a year trying to teach her to fend for her self. Eventually it worked, and Lucy figured it out. Janis left coming back after some time. Lucy immediately recognized Janis and gave her a big hug. Janis left again coming back another year later but Lucy was gone. She found a skeleton of a chimpanzee lying in the bush. It was Lucy. Theory has it she was super comfortable with humans and some poachers came to her habitat. We guess that she approached them with interest but the poachers killed her on sight. The Story of Lucy tells us that it is possible to raise a chimpanzee to think as a human. And learn human like things like wearing clothes, communicating, and being sexually attracted to humans.

One key thing that I found amazing is that sexual barrier between human and chimp was broken. When one species form into two species they are physically unable to mate. And a mental barrier is formed. A lion and a tiger can’t mate because they have are so different and their genes don’t match. And lions would not want to mate with tigers and tigers would not want to mate with lions. So socially making Lucy attracted to humans I an amazing feat.

What I can take away from this story is how amazing the physiological part of life is. And how much more there is to learn about it. This story reminds me of feral children who went through the same ordeal but in the opposite situation of Lucy. It tells us how powerful socialization really is. Lucy lived a great life and taught us many things.