The true apes are all larger animals with no visible tail, and with the exception of the gibbon a rather thin coat of hair.
Men shares with apes many bodily similarities, including the same blood group system and the fact that both can catch the same diseases.
"Ape", from Old English apa, is possibly an onomatopoetic imitation of animal chatter.
Apes' arms are very long and strong. Their legs by comparison are small and weak.
The hands of apes have become specialised hooks for hanging on to branches; their feet, however, have retained much flexibility and they can hold and examine objects with their big toes to a much greater extent than they can with their thumbs.
Except for gorillas and humans, all true apes are agile climbers of trees.
The gorilla is the largest of the apes and may weigh as much as 220 kilograms (500 pounds).
Gorillas travel through the forests in family parties, active during the daytime and sleeping at night in nests made in the trees of woven branches.
Gibbons are the smallest and lightest in weight of the apes and are the most highly acrobatic, swinging and leaping at very great speed through the treetops.
Chimpanzees are much smaller and more agile than gorillas.
Gibbons are capable of running upright on the ground or along a big branch, holding their arms out to balance themselves. They are noisy, sociable animáis, with few natural enemies in their forest home.
The orangutan, which comes from Sumatra and Borneo, is a slow-moving heavyweight animal, keeping to the trees as much as possible, for it cannot move easily on the ground. Its food is mainly fruit and some invertebrates.
Most nonhuman ape species are rare or endangered.
A group of apes may be referred to as a troop or a shrewdness.
