'PAN' - A SHUKERNATURE BOOK REVIEW

 

This is the paperback First Edition (not sure if there was ever a hardback First Edition) of Pan (© Birney Dibble/Leisure Books, of Nordon Publications: New York, 1980 – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Over the years there have been many claims that scientific attempts have been made to create human-ape hybrids, especially so-called humanzees (human x chimpanzee hybrids), but no such forms have ever been confirmed (as I document fully here, even the enigmatic bipedal entity Oliver was conclusively revealed to be a pure-bred chimpanzee). I purchased and first read this unusual science fiction novel exploring the humanzee theme back in the early 1980s as a university student, but today no-one I've spoken to seems even to have heard of it, so here is a short ShukerNature review of Pan.

Written by American surgeon and novelist Birney Dibble and first published in 1980, Pan tells the harrowing and ultimately tragic story of the world's first chimpanzee-human hybrid, created by a wholly unscrupulous rebel scientist, John Reynolds. Assisted by his weak, acquiescent wife, Sylvia, Reynolds stops at nothing, including kidnap, imprisonment, and murder, to achieve his obsessive, Frankensteinian objective.

His goal? By raising this unique entity, whom he names Pan, as if he were his son, Reynolds hopes to divine and thence unlock the hitherto arcane secrets of what truly makes a human human, and ultimately to be the first scientist to discover, by conversing in depth with Pan once mature, how the fusion of human and ape manifests within his mental and physical development.

The reality? Something very different, much darker, and so devastatingly disappointing to Reynolds that his entire world is destroyed, and Pan's transformed out of all recognition, on that fateful day when Reynolds and Sylvia finally reveal to Pan who – and what – he really is. The official blurb for Pan is as follows:

Science created him, mankind rejected him!

 

He was the first of a totally new species, the result of a unique scientific experiment. Half-man, half-beast, he inhabited a world of shadows, torn between his human and animal natures. The conflict within him threatened not only the success of the experiment, but Pan's own life, and the life of the one person who cared about him!

In this novel, Pan is named after the demi-god Pan from classical Greek mythology, the mercurial deity of Nature who was himself half-human, half-beast, and he becomes just as skilful musically as was his legendary namesake, after whom panpipes are named.

Interestingly, Pan is one of three different novels dealing with artificially-created ape-human hybrids that were all published within a relatively space of time, but each took this basic theme along a very different pathway from the other two.

One of these other two was Chimera by English screenwriter/novelist Steven Gallagher, published in 1982, which I've read and enjoyed. It was subsequently converted into an equally thrilling, and chilling, British TV mini-series of the same title (but retitled Monkey Boy for the American market), produced by Anglia TV for ITV and first screened in 1991, which I have lately purchased on DVD. In this two-part show, the laboratory-created hybrid, named Chad, has been produced by genetic engineering at a top-secret governmental establishment, but his behaviour becomes increasingly unstable as he grows older, and he finally escapes, to wreak mayhem and murder in the outside world as his creators frantically seek to recapture him.

Sometimes confused with Chimera by present-day TV enthusiasts is another, slightly earlier but less famous British TV mini-series, this time produced by the BBC, originally screened in 1988, and entitled First Born. Consisting of three episodes, it stars Charles Dance as the rebel scientist figure, a genetic researcher named Edward Forester, who produces a male human-gorilla hybrid. However, his attempts to surreptitiously rear his creation, whom he names Gor, have horrifying unforeseen consequences. Again, I have this series on DVD, but unlike Chimera I have not as yet read the novel that inspired it – Gor Saga, written by English novelist/playwright/poet Maureen Duffy, published in 1981, and adapted for the TV mini-series by Ted Whitehead.

 

The official DVDs of Chimera and First Born (© Stephen Gallagher/Lawrence Gordon Clark/Zenith Entertainment/Anglia Television/Revelation Films Ltd & © Maureen Duffy/Ted Whitehead/Philip Saville/BBC/2entertain Ltd – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

REARING HER LION X TIGER HYBRID CUBS WITH DOGGED DETERMINATION! A SHUKERNATURE PICTURE HISTORY EXCLUSIVE

Vintage picture postcard from my collection, depicting a canine foster mother with her trio of lion x tiger hybrid cub fosterlings (from the archives of Dr Karl Shuker)

Just over a week ago on ShukerNature (click here), I briefly mentioned how, several years ago, while browsing through some picture postcards at a local collectors fair, I chanced upon a vintage example depicting a dog acting as foster mother to three lion x tiger hybrid cubs.

Never having seen this picture before, I swiftly purchased the postcard, and subsequently reproduced it in my book Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery (2012) – which as far as I'm aware is the first time that this picture has ever appeared in any publication, certainly any dealing specifically with unusual cats.

My book Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery, published in 2012 (© Dr Karl Shuker/CFZ Press)

Since then, I've browsed online several times seeking other early illustrations of lion x tiger hybrids, to include in a planned future article, and have found some very interesting examples (adding to various ones already contained in my archives and included by me in my above-cited book). However, I have never once spotted my postcard's picture, not even when I have conducted specific Google Image Searches for it.

Consequently, as a ShukerNature Picture History exclusive, I am presenting it herewith – seemingly the first time, therefore, that this fascinating image has ever appeared online too. In addition, its caption has served as a starting point for me to conduct some research into the history of this picture and its subjects, so here is what I've uncovered.

Once again, my vintage picture postcard of a canine foster mother with her three lion x tiger hybrid cub fosterlings (from the archives of Dr Karl Shuker)

As seen here, this postcard's inset caption reads as follows: "FOSTER MOTHER WITH HYBRID LION-TIGER CUBS. The Bostock Jungle, Earls Court Exhibition. Direction: FRANK C. BOSTOCK.". But who was Frank C. Bostock, what was his Jungle, and when did it appear at Earl's Court?

In fact, as zoological historians will be readily aware, the name Bostock is intimately associated with menageries and other animal-featuring exhibitions, including circuses, during the late 1800s and early 1900s, being a major part of a veritable menagerie dynasty.

Edward H. Bostock (public domain)

It all began in 1805, when George Wombwell (1777-1850) founded a menagerie in Soho, London, but which began touring Britain in 1810 as Wombwell's Travelling Menagerie, and subsequently traversed widely across the European continent, followed by North America (coast to coast), South Africa, India, the Orient, and even as far afield as Australia and New Zealand. During this time, it had continued to expand unabatedly, until at its height it was the largest of its kind in the world.

By the late 1880s, this mega-menagerie was owned and run by one of Wombwell's great-nephews, Edward Henry Bostock (1858-1940), whose father James Bostock had in 1852 married Emma Wombwell, a much-loved niece of George Wombwell. Edward purchased it on 28 February 1889 from his mother Emma (who had received it earlier from her sister, a Mrs Edmonds, who in turn had inherited it from Wombwell upon his death). Edward had previously worked there until September 1883, and enhanced its already-considerable success by combining it with a circus, and renaming it Bostock and Wombwell's Menagerie (subsequently Bostock and Wombwell's Royal Menagerie). So popular did this enterprise prove to be that it continued to tour Britain until December 1931, when it staged its final show, at the Old Sheep Market in Newcastle, northern England. In 1932, Edward sold his animals to London Zoo at Whipsnade.

A poster for Bostock and Wombwell's Menagerie, dating from c.1900 (public domain)

Meanwhile, back in 1897 Edward built in Glasgow his very own Scottish Zoo, a non-touring attraction that was the first permanent zoo in Scotland, but which again incorporated a circus too, so it became known formally as the Zoo-Circus Building (and later the Zoo-Hippodrome Building). He also became a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London.

Edward was always looking out for particularly unusual, exotic animals with which to draw in ever greater audiences to his zoo and touring menagerie, and, as I have documented in two earlier ShukerNature articles (click here and here), it was he who purchased in May 1908 the extraordinary three-species big cat hybrid Uneeka, a lijagupard (lion x jaguar-leopard hybrid), for display in Glasgow after she had been exhibited for a couple of weeks at London Zoo.

Frederick Frohawk's exquisite illustration from 1908 of Uneeka the lijagupard when still living at London Zoo (public domain)

No less involved with menageries than Edward, however, was his younger brother, Frank Charles Bostock (1866-1912). Edward utilised Glasgow as his primary base, but after running his own menagerie for a time in Britain before selling it to Edward, Frank then broke away by journeying to the USA in 1893 and establishing wild animal shows there instead, with partners Francis and Joseph Ferari, especially in New York at Coney Island's vast Dreamland amusement park until 1903, and becoming known as 'The Animal King'. During the opening decade of the 20^th Century, Frank returned to Britain from New York as an extremely experienced menagerie keeper and exhibitor but also greatly skilled in the American 'big show' tradition of public entertainment.

Accordingly, he deftly combined these two previously quite discrete elements to great success via the creation of a huge touring animal-themed exhibition officially known as Bostock's Arena and Jungle (but often shortened simply to Bostock's Jungle), which travelled from city to city and, in 1908, was staged at Earl's Court Exhibition Centre, London – during which the three lion x tiger hybrids featured in my vintage picture postcard were displayed. Big cat hybrids were very popular in such shows back then, due to their unusual nature and often very distinctive appearance.

Frank C. Bostock (public domain)

Tragically, however, the immense effort that Frank put into all of his shows and tours proved too much. In early October 1912, after having already become seriously ill with what was claimed by the media to be nervous exhaustion but which was apparently a stroke, he was found to have contracted influenza too, and passed away on 8 October, his 46^th birthday, at his Kensington Mansions home in London. Unlike a number of other menagerie owners, Frank was famous and much-respected for the kind treatment that he always showed to his animals – a memorable quote attributed to him is: "Kindness is the whip used to lead dumb animals to obey" – and his funeral was attended by many hundreds of fans and fellow showmen, including the legendary circus owner Pat Collins. At the time of his death, Frank owned over 1000 animals, but I have yet to discover what happened to them afterwards – were they purchased, perhaps, by Edward, or sold off separately to other menageries, zoos, circuses, and/or private individuals? If anyone reading this article of mine has any information, I'd be most grateful to receive it and incorporate here, but credited fully to them by me as always.

Finally: one of Frank's most celebrated animal stars, who brought him considerable fame and prestige, was a trained chimpanzee called Consul the Man Chimp – so-named because of his almost-human behaviour. Insured for what was then the enormous sum of £20,000 and dressed in the nattiest of human clothes (which he would put on and take off all by himself, mend if required, and even wash and put out to dry), Consul habitually walked upright, smoked cigarettes, drank wine and whisky as well as tea and hot chocolate, ate meals using a knife and fork, always travelled first-class, stayed only in the best hotels, and expertly drove his own electric car. Nor was Consul unique. Following his death in 1904, he was replaced by a succession of new Consuls, some performing simultaneously at different shows run by Frank, who as already noted was an accomplished animal trainer. Reading about Consul and his successors, I am reminded irresistibly of another so-called 'man chimp' (aka a humanzee) – whose name was Oliver (read all about him here), and whose famously human demeanour now, in the light of those displayed by Frank's Consuls, seems a good deal less exceptional than traditionally deemed.

Vintage picture postcard (from the same series as my dog/cubs card presented here) depicting one of the later Consul the Man Chimp individuals, who took part in the 1908 Bostock's Jungle exhibition at Earl's Court in London where the lion x tiger hybrid cubs also appeared (public domain)

POSTSCRIPT

Shortly after completing this ShukerNature article, I was interested to discover that Frank C. Bostock had written a book on the subject of animal training, published in 1903, entitled The Training of Wild Animals, and currently still in print. Tracing a copy of the original edition online, I saw that it had been edited by wildlife authoress/journalist Ellen Velvin FZS, whose Editor's Note at the beginning of the book provides what certainly appears to be a direct corroboration of Frank's reputation with regard to his animals, and as such definitely bears reiterating. So here it is in full:

Before editing this book, I took the op­portunity offered by Mr. Frank C. Bostock of practically living in one of his animal exhibitions for a few weeks, in order to see things as they were, and not as I had always heard of them.

I was allowed to go in and out at all times and all hours; to enter the training-schools whenever I liked; to go behind the runways and cages,—a special privilege given to the trainers only, as a rule,—and to be a spectator of whatever happened to be going on at the time.

The thing which interested me most, and to which I paid special attention, was that at no time in this exhibition did I once see the slightest act of cruelty in any way. Each one of the trainers and keepers had pride in his own special animals, and I had many proofs of their kindness and consideration to their charges. The sick animals were most care­fully looked after and doctored, and in one case of a lion cub having convulsions, I noticed dim eyes in more than one keeper when the poor little animal was convulsed and racked with suffering.

Had I seen the least cruelty or neglect in any way, I need scarcely say nothing would have induced me to edit this book.

Illustration from a programme advertising one of Frank's American animal shows from 1901, held in Buffalo, New York, in which he would sit casually reading a newspaper in the midst of a pride of 25 lions (public domain)

THE SPINY-BACKED CHIMPANZEE – A CONGOLESE CHUPACABRA CHIMP!

Reconstruction of the spiny-backed chimpanzee (Tim Morris)

In an ongoing occasional series, previous ShukerNature posts have documented a number of once- and still-controversial forms of chimpanzee – the pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo (click here), the koolookamba (here), Ufiti (here), ape-man Oliver (here), and the Bili ape (here). None, however, is as bizarre as this series' latest example – the little-known yet truly extraordinary spiny-backed chimpanzee reported from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The only information concerning this anomalous anthropoid currently known to me is a short account that appeared in Philippe Coudray's self-illustrated book Guide des Animaux Cachés (2009).

According to Coudray, a member of a unit from the United States Navy who wishes to remain anonymous has claimed that during a mission to the Democratic Congo sometime between 1997 and 2002, the unit's team encountered 13 bipedal chimpanzees that were attempting to kill another animal. Standing 4.5-5 ft high, they were uniformly grey in colour, but by far their most distinctive feature was the series of spines running down each chimp's back, which stood up like porcupine quills whenever the chimps became agitated.

Coudray also stated that the team actually shot a three-minute video film of these extraordinary apes, but that it remains a military secret. The precise location of this sighting is unknown, but as the team was from the US Navy and the Democratic Congo is virtually landlocked, it may have been somewhere close to Lake Tanganyika.

The possession of genuine spines by these apes seems highly improbable, but perhaps they sported distinctive manes or even erectile tufts of hair that superficially resembled spines. Moreover, manes have also been reported from certain other bipedal crypto-primates, including the batutut of Borneo (closely resembling the Sumatran orang pendek), the brown-furred Congolese kakundakari, and the Central American dwendi. Indeed, were it not for the chimps' grey fur, they might even have been one and the same as the kakundakari, although kakundakari eyewitnesses generally claim that this latter entity is humanoid rather than anthropoid in form, and smaller than the spiny-backed chimps.

The potto (ltshears/Wikipedia)

Among known primates, the only species that can in any way be described as spiny is a small loris-related African prosimian known as the potto Perodicticus potto. Its neck bears a series of small tubercles covering its elongated cervical vertebrae, which have sharp points and almost pierce its skin, and are utilised as defensive weapons. Needless to say, however, these do not even begin to compare with the quills described for the spiny-backed chimps discussed here.

The bipedal nature of these chimps is very noteworthy too, as chimpanzees do not normally exhibit such behaviour as a habitual activity.

With so little information and no hard evidence to examine, and not even any eyewitness names to pursue, however, there seems little else that can be said in relation to the Congolese spiny-backed chimpanzee. Could it simply be a hoax, or a figment of poorly-viewed or imperfectly-reported observations? Or might there really be a singularly astonishing strain of spiny chimp out there, still awaiting formal scientific disclosure - a veritable chupacabra chimpanzee, in fact?!!

Philippe Coudray's own illustration of the spiny-backed chimpanzee

THE BILI (BONDO) APES – UNMASKING THE CONGO'S GIANT CHIMPANZEES

This photograph of a shot Bili ape appeared in Vol. 1 of Adolf Friedrich Herzog von Mecklenburg’s tome Vom Kongo zum Niger und Nil: Berichte der Deutschen Zentralafrika-Expedition 1910/1911, which was published in 1912 – more than a century before this highly distinctive ape form’s reality was formally recognised by science

Here's the latest in my occasional series of ShukerNature cryptozoology articles re anomalous and controversial chimpanzee forms (click here for my account of the pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo, here for the koolookamba, here for Ufiti, and here for 'apeman' Oliver).

Until quite recently, even amid the many remote regions of darkest Africa, the possibility of an unknown form of anthropoid existing there yet still eluding scientific recognition seemed ludicrous - but then came the Bili (aka Bondo) ape.

The saga of this remarkable, highly controversial primate began more than a century ago, when in 1898 a Belgian army officer returned home from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo with some gorilla skulls obtained by him in a forested region near the village of Bili, on the Uele River in northern Congo's Bondo area - even though no other gorillas had been found within hundreds of miles of Bili before (or since). He donated them to Belgium's Congo Museum in Tervueren, where in due course they were examined by its curator, Henri Schouteden. He was sufficiently struck by their anatomical differences from other gorilla skulls as well as by their unique provenance (roughly halfway between the extreme edges of the western and eastern distribution of any gorilla populations) to classify them as a new subspecies of gorilla, which he dubbed Gorilla gorilla uellensis.

Less convinced of their separate taxonomic status, conversely, was mammalogist Prof. Colin Groves, whose examination of these skulls in 1970 led him to announce that they were indistinguishable from western lowland gorillas. Thereafter, the Bili ape sank back into obscurity - until 1996, when Kenyan-based conservationist and wildlife photographer Karl Ammann, intrigued by its strange history and apparent disappearance, set out on the first of several Congolese quests to rediscover this mysterious primate.

And rediscover it he did, bringing back such compelling evidence for its presence that several other notable investigators launched their own searches, and returned with equally fascinating clues concerning the Bili ape's nature. Such researchers included primatologist Dr Shelly Williams from Maryland's Jane Goodall Institute, Dr Richard Wrangham from the Leakey Foundation, Dr Christophe Boesch from Leipzig's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Dr Esteban Sarmiento from New York's American Museum of Natural History, and Dr George Schaller from New York's Wildlife Conservation Society.

What made their various finds so especially interesting was the ambivalent identity that they collectively yielded for the Bili ape - because, uniquely, it deftly yet bemusingly combines characteristics of gorillas with those of chimpanzees, creating a shadowy anthropoid that is at once both yet neither. For instance: if the Bili ape is a chimpanzee, it is a veritable giant, because videos of living specimens and photographs of dead ones suggest a height of 5-6 ft - a mighty stature supported by the discovery of enormous footprints, some measuring almost 14 in long, and therefore nearly 2 in longer even than those of the mountain gorilla!

A dead Bili ape, revealing its noticeably large size (http://www.factzoo.com/mammals)

Also, very large ground nests constructed by Bili apes have been found that compare with those created by gorillas; normal chimps build smaller, tree-borne nests. Further evidence of the Bili ape's great size comes from local Bondo hunters, who distinguish two distinct apes - 'tree-beaters' (normal chimps) and 'lion-killers' (the Bili apes). The latter earn their name from their combined size and ferocity, a mix potent enough to ensure their terrestrial safety even in a jungle profusely populated by lions and leopards.

Indeed, so unafraid of these great cats are the Bili apes that according to media claims they hoot loudly when the moon rises and sets - an activity unknown among normal, smaller chimps, who avoid doing so in case they attract predators. However, these latter claims have been denied by Amsterdam University field researcher Cleve Hicks, who spent a year with colleagues tracking Bili apes during from mid-2005 to June 2006, followed by a second study spanning July 2006-February 2007.

Particularly noticeable is the presence of a pronounced sagittal crest running along the top of one of the original skulls collected by the Belgian army officer, and also on a Bili ape skull found by Ammann in 1996 - because this crest, normally an indication of powerful jaws as the jaw muscles are attached to it, is characteristic of gorillas, not of chimps. Conversely, the facial anatomy of the Bili skulls is decidedly chimp-like, not gorilla-like. In addition, hair samples taken from Bili ape ground nests have been shown to contain mitochondrial DNA similar to that of chimps, and the fruit-rich content of examined faecal droppings is again consistent with a chimp identity - although, perplexingly, the droppings themselves outwardly resemble those of gorillas.

So what is the Bili ape - a gorilla-sized chimp (freak population?/new subspecies?/new species?), an aberrant form of gorilla (freak population?/new subspecies?/new species?) that has evolved certain chimp-like anatomical and behavioural characteristics, or even possibly a genuine chimpanzee-gorilla hybrid? No confirmed crossbreeding between chimp and gorilla has ever been recorded, but the two species are sufficiently similar genetically to engender viable offspring. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down exclusively from the maternal parent, so if such interspecific matings are indeed occurring they must involve female chimps and male gorillas, to explain why the mitochondrial DNA from the Bili ape samples is chimp-like.

Happily, however, the Bili ape's identity was eventually unmasked. Comprehensive DNA analyses, including nuclear DNA (thus shedding light on both the maternal and the paternal lineages of the Bili ape), had been underway since autumn 2003 at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, under the auspices of conservation geneticist Dr Ed Louis, and involving DNA comparisons with gorillas, chimps, and also bonobos (pygmy chimps).

So too had analyses of mitochondrial DNA taken from faecal samples conducted by Dr Cleve Hicks and other Amsterdam University colleagues, who had also examined these primates' behaviour in the field. And in 2006, this latter team announced that their findings all confirmed that the Bili ape belongs to a known subspecies of chimp – the eastern chimpanzee Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii. Presumably, therefore, the Bili ape's very distinctive morphological features have evolved through its population's isolation from others of this subspecies but involve relatively little change at the genetic level. After years of mystery and intrigue, the riddle of the Bili ape had at last been solved.

This ShukerNature post is excerpted from my book The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals (Coachwhip: Landisville, 2012).

'APE-MAN' OLIVER - THE CHIMP THAT MADE A CHUMP OUT OF SCIENCE

Frequently-reproduced media photo of Oliver from the mid-1970s (Associated Press)

Welcome to the latest in my occasional series of ShukerNature articles regarding controversial forms of chimpanzee from the past and the present (click here for my article on the bonobo, here for the koolookamba, and here for Ufiti):

Among the great and the good who died in 2012 was one very notable celebrity of the non-human, cryptozoological persuasion. His name was Oliver, or, to give him an oft-used media appelation, Ape-man Oliver, and he was, quite simply, the chimp that made a chump out of science for several decades. Having said that, however, nothing was ever quite simple about Oliver, as we shall see...

Oliver first came to widespread public attention in 1976, when newspapers and magazines worldwide became interested in the strange chimpanzee that New York attorney Michael Miller had bought off a travelling animal-act owner called Frank Burger, allegedly for $10,000. Oliver was about seven years old at that time, and had reputedly been obtained in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). The first clue suggesting that Oliver may not be as other chimps was the reason why Burger had sold him.

Early newspaper report re Oliver, showing him standing bipedally (click it to enlarge it for reading) – Reveille, 2 July 1976 (Reveille)

According to media accounts, Oliver had never been accepted by Burger's other chimps and could not be trained to perform with them in their stage act. Instead, he preferred to walk on his hind legs, sit cross-legged on a chair, and help Burger's wife, Janet, with the chores around the house.

Oliver also made it clear that he fancied her. Not surprisingly, Janet issued her husband with an adamant proclamation concerning her pesky paramour: "I'm not putting up with this. He's going or I'm going." So Oliver went - sold by Burger to Miller.

It was not only his behaviour, however, that distinguished Oliver from other chimps. Much was made in media reports of his strange morphology. Although his black fur and pinkish-brown skin were run-of-the-mill characteristics of the common chimpanzee Pan troglodytes, great emphasis was placed upon his bald, seemingly small, egg-shaped cranium (in normal chimps, this is more commonly hairier, larger, and flatter), the unexpectedly reduced prominence of his jaws (thereby yielding a somewhat humanoid appearance), his pointed (rather than rounded) ears, and even his freckles.

A further Reveille article re Oliver, dated 14 July 1976 - click it to enlarge it for reading (Reveille)

Conflicting accounts were given regarding Oliver's body odour. Some media reports described it as very strong; yet after explorer Lieutenant Colonel John Blashford-Snell had examined him at the 1976 Explorers Club Annual Dinner in New York, he announced in his book Mysteries (1983) that Oliver had little or no body odour.

Odour or no odour, the media bloodhounds pursued the scent that something was not quite right with Oliver. It was claimed (but never substantiated) that, when Miller took Oliver to Japan in the mid-1970s, blood tests conducted by scientists had shown that Oliver had 47 chromosomes - one more than humans, one less than chimps.

Inevitably, these contentious claims (eventually fully disproved) prompted all manner of bizarre identities for Miller's egg-headed enigma. If Oliver were a Down's Syndrome chimp, as some asserted, he would have possessed an extra chromosome (i.e. 49), not one chromosome less than normal for chimps. Others suggested that he might be a mutant form of chimp, or a new subspecies or even species of chimp. Scaling ever further up the ladder of improbable identities, some wondered if Oliver might be a hybrid of common chimp Pan troglodytes and bonobo (pygmy chimp) P. paniscus; a specimen of the elusive hairy man-beast of West Africa termed the séhité, or even a crossbreed of chimp and séhité; and there were even queries as to whether he was some form of mini-bigfoot or yeti! Most radical of all was media speculation as to whether Oliver could be the offspring of a chimpanzee-human mating, i.e. a veritable humanzee. In an item on African mystery primates in the Reader's Digest compendium volume Man and Beast (1993), I opined that Oliver was merely a western African chimp - but with much more dramatic options on offer, the media never paid much attention to this in their reportage.

A bonobo (Dr Karl Shuker)

During the late 1970s and through the 1980s, Oliver vanished from the headlines, but was often exhibited as a freak or 'missing link' at various sideshows. In 1977, Michael Miller sold him to Ralph Helfer, partner in a Californian theme park called Enchanted Village. When the park closed down later that year, Helfer continued exhibiting Oliver in a new venture, Gentle Jungle, which changed locations a few times until it closed down in 1982. Oliver was transferred to the Wild Animal Training Center at Riverside, California, owned by Ken Decroo, but he was allegedly sold by Decroo in 1985. The last trainer to own Oliver was Bill Rivers.

In 1989, Oliver was purchased by the Buckshire Corporation, a Pennsylvanian laboratory leasing out animals for scientific and cosmetic testing. Mercifully, he was never used in experiments, but for the next seven years his home was a 7 x 5ft cage, whose restricted size resulted in his muscles becoming atrophied so much that his limbs trembled.

Still bipedal, Oliver during late 1990s (Associated Press)

Happily, in 1996, Oliver's confinement came to an end, when he was retired to an animal sanctuary at Boerne in Texas's Hill County. Called Primarily Primates, it offered spacious accommodation and allowed Oliver to return to good health. He even gained a female chimpanzee companion there, named Raisin. And as to the news headlines, the sanctuary's director, Wally Swett, was determined to solve the mystery of his celebrity guest's taxonomic identity once and for all.

Swett asked Chicago University geneticist Dr David Ledbetter to examine Oliver's chromosomes, which he did in autumn 1996. His studies revealed that Oliver had 48 (not 47) chromosomes, thus disproving the earlier claim and confirming that he had a normal chromosome count for a common chimpanzee. Swett, however, desired further analyses to pin-point Oliver's precise status. Accordingly, he persuaded DNA analysis expert Dr John J. Ely from Texas's Trinity University and cytogeneticist Dr Charleen Moore from Texas University's Health Science Center to conduct the most extensive genetic studies ever undertaken with Oliver. Their results were published in 1998 by the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and disclosed the following details.

 

 

Footage of Oliver from the 1990s UK TV show Fortean TV showing him walking fully upright bipedally (Luke Campbell (director)/Rapido TV/Channel 4 - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Standard chromosomal studies fully supported Ledbetter's findings that Oliver had the diploid chromosome count expected for chimpanzees (i.e. 48, in 24 pairs). They also revealed that his chromosomes possessed banding patterns typical for the common chimpanzee but different from those of humans and bonobos, thereby excluding any possibility of Oliver being a hybrid.

Moreover, when they sequenced a specific portion (312 bp region) of the D-loop region of Oliver's mitochondrial DNA, they discovered that its sequence corresponded very closely indeed with that of the Central African subspecies of common chimpanzee; and the closest correspondence of all was with a chimp specimen from Gabon in Central-West Africa. This all strongly suggests that Oliver also originated from this region and is simply a common chimp - an identity entirely consistent, therefore, with my own little-publicised opinion from 1993.

Oliver in later years (Traci Goudie)

After decades of mystery, Oliver's identity had finally been uncovered, exposed by his genes. But what of his external idiosyncrasies? Fly and Moore's paper contained some eye-opening information dating back to the 1970s, but which was presumably not sensational enough to attract the interest of the media and thus had not previously received publicity.

For instance, although media accounts had noted that Oliver was toothless (his teeth had been pulled), they had not revealed that primatologist Dr Clifford Jolly had examined Oliver as long ago as 1976. Jolly found that the reason why Oliver did not share the strikingly prognathous (projecting) jaw line of other chimps was due to resorption of the alveolar bone, plus a shortened maxilla and premaxilla (upper jaw bones), and underdeveloped temporal musculature. Jolly had concluded that these features were in turn caused by Oliver's toothless condition. He also concluded that Oliver's habitual bipedal gait was due to conditioning.

As for Oliver's cranial morphology, ear shape, freckles and baldness, these were nothing more than individual variations, well within the range of variability exhibited by the common chimpanzee - a species that presents, in the words of primatologist Prof. W.C. Osman Hill: "a bewildering variety of individual variations".

Another early media photo of Oliver (photo source unknown to me)

Although no longer special in taxonomic terms, Oliver was destined forever to remain a classic example of how media hype and sensationalist publicity can create with Frankensteinian fervour a veritable monster from the most mundane of animals. Happily, however, Oliver was able live the remainder of his days in peaceful retirement and security at Primarily Primates inside a spacious open-air enclosure with his chimp girlfriend Raisin, far away from the unwelcome media glare that had blighted this mild-mannered, highly-intelligent being's often traumatic and tumultuous life.

On 2 June 2012, Oliver died of old age. He was approximately 55 years old. His body was cremated and his ashes spread over the grounds of Primarily Primates. The decision to cremate him caused some dismay among certain scientists who had hoped to conduct further tests upon his physical remains. I for one, conversely, feel that Oliver had endured more than enough speculation and scrutiny during his turbulent life, and that with the conclusive findings of Ely, Moore, and Jolly concerning his taxonomic identity on record, it was both timely and fitting that in death he should finally be granted the tranquillity, privacy, and dignity that he was never permitted in life. RIP Oliver.

A sketch I prepared depicting Oliver's distinctive facial features (Dr Karl Shuker)