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)



UFITI - THE 'GHOST' CHIMPANZEE OF NKATA BAY

Ufiti - the mystery chimpanzee of Nkata Bay (Loren Coleman)

Welcome to my 300th ShukerNature blog post!

One of the most controversial (and also, at least online, one of the most erroneously reported) of the 20th Century's mammalian discoveries involved a female chimpanzee named Ufiti. Consequently, in this latest in an occasional series of ShukerNature articles regarding previously and presently contentious forms of chimp (click here for my article on the bonobo, and click here for my article on the koolookamba), I aim to rectify this situation by presenting the first accurate online documentation of Ufiti.

Nkata Bay is on the western shore of Lake Nyasa in what was then Nyasaland (later renamed Malawi), and in August 1959 inhabitants of this bay began to report sightings of a strange ape-like entity in the fringes of the adjacent forest. Such reports were readily confirmed, because the animal in question became very interested in the construction work that was taking place on a new bridge and road at the nearby Limpasa River, and stayed in the vicinity to observe the proceedings, so it was often seen. And as its amiable curiosity largely eclipsed its fear of humans, it could be closely approached.

When questioned, the local westerners asserted that it was new to them, not previously known in the area, and the natives referred to it as ufiti - meaning 'ghost'. It was not a ghost, however, but a mature female chimpanzee - which came as a great surprise to zoologists, because chimpanzees had never before been recorded in Malawi. Indeed, the nearest colony on record was at least 480 miles northwest of Nkata Bay - in Tanzania's Nkungwe Mountains, on Lake Tanganyika's eastern shore.

A photograph of Ufiti snapped in the wild (Gilbert L. Goodwin)

In March 1960, a field expedition from the Rhodes-Livingstone Museum, headed by Drs B.L. Mitchell and C.S. Holliday, travelled to Nkata Bay to observe and photograph Ufiti (as she had been nicknamed by then), as well as to obtain tape recordings of her vocalisations, and to study the prevailing ecology of the area. The information gathered during that expedition was then sent to anthropologist Dr W.C. Osman Hill, for his remarks and opinions, which in 1963 he documented within an article published by London's Zoological Society in a symposium of primate research papers.

The photos and observations obtained during the expedition revealed that Ufiti, although definitely a common chimpanzee (and therefore belonging to the species Pan troglodytes), exhibited certain unexpected features. In view of her provenance, she should have been most similar in appearance to East African chimps - but instead, her completely black face, ears, hands, and feet, and also her short, dense coat, allied her more closely with western forms. Equally strange was the presence of a saddle-like area of pale grey fur across her back - a feature characteristic of mature male gorillas!

A second photograph of Ufiti snapped in the wild (Gilbert L. Goodwin)

Prior to Hill's article, the predominant opinion among zoologists concerning Ufiti was that she must surely be just an escapee from captivity. However, the morphological features documented by Hill argued strongly against such an identity - inciting speculation that Ufiti represented a hitherto unknown taxon (subspecies?) of common chimpanzee, native to Malawi and normally concealed in this country's dense forests, with Ufiti herself presumably being a wanderer, or an individual cast out of the population by its other members. Worth noting, as commented upon by Hill, is that the Nkata Bay area is well known for harbouring a number of animal and plant species more closely related to West African forms than to East African ones. Moreover, Hill later received accounts of chimpanzee-like creatures from Malawi that considerably preceded Ufiti's debut.

Not everyone, however, was convinced by Hill's theory. In their Mammals of Malawi (1988), W.F.H. Ansell and R.J. Dowsett claimed that the mystery of Ufiti had been solved, and that she was nothing more than an escaped pet originating in Zaire (now the Democratic Congo). They stated that some years prior to their book's publication: "...the late Fr Tréguier, a White Father at a mission in the Misuku Hills, showed Dowsett a photograph which he had obtained from a colleague, Fr Rainville, of the animal [Ufiti] which was...a household pet brought from Zaire at a time when many expatriates were leaving the country due to the troubled political situation".

However, this apparently satisfactory solution is not quite as water-tight as it may seem. For as Ansell and Dowsett went on to say: "It is not known who brought it into Malawi or by what route". So how can anyone be absolutely sure that it did originate from Zaire? Moreover, it is unlikely that an individual chimpanzee can be conclusively identified from just a single picture anyway. Hence it is impossible to say with certainty that the chimp in the photograph truly was Ufiti.

Photograph of Ufiti from a Popular Science Monthly report, July 1961 (Popular Science Monthly)

Sadly, the truth as to whether Ufiti was a major discovery or just an escaped pet may never be known. In March 1964 she was captured, and sent to Britain's Chester Zoo, arriving there on 19 March. Unhappily, however, her health was found to be deteriorating rapidly; and so, to prevent her from suffering any further, on 23 April the zoo had no option but to put her down. With Ufiti's passing, the issue of Malawi's putative chimpanzee population was soon forgotten, so that over 50 years after her first appearance the friendly 'ghost' from Nkata Bay may still hold some surprises in store.

Incidentally, the numerous, frequently-repeated online claims that Ufiti was of giant size are a total if tenacious fallacy. Mr R.G.M. Willan, who was Nyasaland's Chief Conservator of Forests (and also Chairman of the Nyasaland Fauna Preservation Society) at the time of Ufiti's presence in the wild state at Nkata Bay, personally observed her there, and in a detailed report concerning her that was published in the September/December 1961 issue of Wild Life Nairobi, he made the following statement regarding her size:

"Unfortunately its height was much exaggerated by some of the first observers, and their guesses varied from 5 ft 6 ins to 6 ft. In actual fact it is probably a little more than 4 ft in height [i.e. within the normal range for adult female common chimpanzees]."

Consequently, Ufiti should not be synonymised with the much bigger variety of chimpanzee lately revealed in the Democratic Congo and referred to as the Bili ape (but unfortunately this error has indeed occurred in a number of accounts, e.g. the Wikipedia entry for Dr W.C. Osman Hill, at least when consulted by me today on 24 January 2013).

Close-up photograph of Ufiti in the wild (R.G.M. Willan/Wild Life Nairobi)

This ShukerNature blog article is excerpted (and expanded) from my recent book The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals (Coachwhip Publications: Landisville, 2012).



GOING APE ABOUT THE KOOLOOKAMBA

Late 19th-Century engraving of Mafuka, the most famous koolookamba specimen

Not a single verified example of a hybrid between a chimpanzee and gorilla has ever been recorded by science - which is why the koolookamba is such a controversial creature of cryptozoology.

This mystery ape was first brought to European attention by the explorer Paul du Chaillu, who shot what he initially assumed to be a large adult male chimpanzee in Gabon's Ashankolo Mountains during April 1858. However, its head was rounded, as was its bare black face, its eyes were large and set wide apart, it had well-developed eyebrow ridges, a flat nose, and elevated, projecting cheekbones - which are all characteristics more typical of a gorilla (two species of which are recognised today - the western gorilla Gorilla gorilla and the eastern gorilla G. beringei, of which latter species the mountain gorilla is a subspecies, G. b. beringei).

19th-Century engraving of a koolookamba

Consequently, du Chaillu stated that he considered his specimen to be totally separate from both chimp and gorilla. So too did the local native people - who claimed that this strange type of 'intermediate' ape lived exclusively in the mountains, never inhabiting lowland regions. They even had a special name for it - the koolookamba ('that which speaks 'kooloo''), after its distinctive call, 'kooloo' (and also spelt variously as koolokamba and koolakamba). Accordingly, in 1860 du Chaillu formally christened his newly-created species Troglodytes koolokamba - the first of several different scientific names, and identities, that would be applied to this ambiguous ape.

Left side of Mafuka's head – engraving from 1896

Over the years, a number of other koolookambas have been obtained from Gabon and elsewhere in equatorial West Africa. Some have even been displayed alive in zoos. Perhaps the most famous captive koolookamba was 'Mafuka' (also spelt 'Mafuca' in some sources) - a large aggressive female brought from Gabon's Loango Coast and exhibited at Dresden Zoo in the 1870s. Another fierce individual from the late 1800s was 'Johanna' - displayed at the Barnum Bailey World Show after four years at Lisbon Zoo. In the 1980s, the Holloman Air Force Base's chimpanzee colony at Alamagordo, New Mexico, contained two adult female koolookambas - 'Minnie' and 'Sevim'.

Mafuka's face – engraving from 1896

In short, it is clear that koolookambas exist. Far less clear, conversely, is their identity - just what is a koolookamba? The complexity of this question is exemplified by the intense deliberation that took place in 19th-Century zoological circles regarding Mafuka's identity.

The most conservative school of thought claimed that she was just an unusual chimpanzee. In contrast, some zoologists were persuaded by her heavy brows, fairly small ears, wide nose, and powerful, projecting jaws to classify her as a small gorilla (the confirmed identity of a female koolookamba sent to Basle Zoo in 1967). Certain others, echoing du Chaillu, felt sure that she represented a separate third species - one that subtly combined characteristics of chimpanzee with those of gorilla but remained taxonomically distinct from both.

Engraving of the right side of Mafuka's head

Most dramatic (yet most popular) of all, however, was the opinion voiced by zoologist Dr Richard Lydekker among others. Namely, that her interspecific combination of features showed that Mafuka was actually a crossbreed - resulting from a mating in the wild between a chimpanzee and a gorilla. Indeed, in 1881, German game hunter Hugo von Koppenfels alleged that he had positive proof that such hybridisation did occur (and these two ape forms are certainly closely related), but no such proof has ever been accepted by zoologists.

The fundamental problem responsible for the dilemma of the koolookamba's true identity is the extraordinary diversity in outward and cranial morphology exhibited by the chimpanzee across its wide geographical distribution. This explains why, by 1919, at least 20 different species of chimpanzee had been distinguished and accepted as valid by some zoologists. These included such distinctively-named forms as the soko (native to the jungles west of Lake Tanganyika) and the nschiego mbouvé (native to Gabon, like the koolookamba).

19th-Century engraving of a Gabonese nschiego mbouvé, based upon a stuffed specimen

Since the extensive taxonomic researches published by German primatologist Dr Ernst Schwarz during the 1930s, however, only two species have been recognised by most authorities.

One of these is the pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo Pan paniscus - yet another identity lately proposed for Mafuka by some researchers (click here for a separate ShukerNature article devoted specifically to the fascinating history of the bonobo).

Pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo (Dr Karl Shuker)

The other is the common chimpanzee Pan troglodytes, which is usually split into four subspecies - P. t. verus (West Africa), P. t. schweinfurthi (Central Africa), P. t. ellioti [=vellerosus] (Nigeria and Cameroon), and P. t. troglodytes (Central West Africa). One of several former full species included by Schwarz within the last-mentioned subspecies was the koolookamba - but this was one puzzling primate from the past that would not be laid to rest quite so easily.

In 1967, primatologist Professor W.C. Osman Hill reclassified the koolookamba as an additional chimpanzee subspecies in its own right, dubbing it P. t. koolokamba. Nevertheless, many researchers do not support the koolookamba's revived claim to independent status.

Painting of Pan troglodytes koolokamba ( (c) Josef Smit)

As pointed out by gorilla expert Don Cousins and American anthropologist Dr Brian Shea, individuals displaying the koolookamba's distinctive morphology arise spasmodically in totally separate populations of chimpanzees - thus indicating that the koolookamba is merely the product of a chance assemblage of genes, rather than a segregated form that breeds true.

Having said that, there does seem to be a link between koolookamba occurrence and montane habitat. And as its distinguishing features happen to be much the same as those that delineate eastern Africa's mountain gorilla G. beringei beringei from eastern Africa's lowland gorilla G. b. graueri, could the koolookamba therefore constitute an incipient mountain-favouring race of chimpanzee?

Sepia-tinted engravings of Mafuka

In the absence of further research (preferably incorporating comparative DNA analyses featuring 'typical' chimps, koolookambas, and gorillas), however, it seems likely that the koolookamba will be monkeying around with zoological opinion for a long time to come!

Nor is this anomalous anthropoid the only controversial chimpanzee on record. Others include the Bili ape, the mystery chimpanzee of Yaounde Zoo, the ufiti of Malawi, 'ape-man' Oliver, thumbless chimps, chocolate-coloured chimps, and, most extraordinary of all, the spiny-backed chimpanzee – but these must wait for future ShukerNature posts!

An engraving of Mafuka the koolookamba appearing on this Liberian postage stamp issued in 1906