If we look straight and deep into a chimpanzee’s eyes, an intelligent self-assured personality looks back at us. If they are animals, what must we be?

No existing form of anthropoid ape is even remotely related to the stock which has given rise to man.

A century ago, people laughed at the notion that we were descended from monkeys. Today, the individuals most offended by that claim are the monkeys.

Never call anyone a baboon unless you are sure of your facts.

As I sit, my back leaning against a damp, moss-covered tree trunk, my eyes sweeping the canopy above, my ears straining to catch the crack of a distant branch that betrays an orangutan moving in...

This is where the whole ape-descended thing reveals its worth, I thought madly. Sucks to be you, quadruped. Opposable thumbs – don’t leave home without them.

One of the great commandments of science is, ‘Mistrust arguments from authority’. (Scientists, being primates, and thus given to dominance hierarchies, of course do not always follow this commandment.)