Azathoth

Very cool.I'd never even heard about Oliver before this.There's not much information about him,but I found this cache on google that has letters that were taken off the primarily primates site.One of them mentions that the x rays they took of Oliver indicate that he has to walk upright because of his bone structure,and that it's not just a chimp emulating humans.

It would be very interesting to see what his pelvis looks like.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:...n&ie=UTF-8</a>


Primarily Primates is currently trying to find background information on a chimpanzee named Oliver. Oliver is one of the 12 chimpanzees that Primarily Primates will soon be receiving for retirement from the Buckshire Corporation.

At this point, very little information is available on his past and it is felt that any additional info would be of great assistance in his future rehabilitation.

Oliver has a very distinct appearance and has been billed throughout his life as "The Missing Link" a "freak" of nature, a "Bigfoot", etc. He walks exclusively upright or bipedally in a locked knee position and x-rays have showed that his bone structure precludes anything but an upright position. Other unique features include the size and shape of his ears and his completely bald head.

The letter below was received by PPI from one of his former trainers in California and is the only concrete information that we have. He saw an appeal for funding for the project and wrote to contribute his knowledge of Oliver's background which is very much appreciated.

We do not know Oliver's exact age although we do believe that he is at least 30. We also know that he was owned by an attorney from New York at one time who attempted to arrange for scientists to study him. Apparently little was done in this area and he was eventually sold back into the entertainment industry.



I wonder if he should be studied more thouroughly.Here's an incident of an upright primate,that's not a human.They did tests to find out if he was a human-chimp hybrid,and that's not the case.

Although his gait isn't like ours,it does show what early bipedalism might have been like,and that might be worth looking into.


Edit:His name's Oliver,not Charlie.I have no idea why I called him that.

Coragyps

230 days for chimps and bonobos, and 280 for humans, but the normal ranges overlap, according to Walker's Mammals. And I think we already have hybrids - have you ever watched an old Jerry Lewis movie? Or seen Kent Hovind?

Golgo-13

I remember reading that the Soviets did experiments with in vitro cross-breeding of chimpanzees and humans. The article I read, not long after the USSR imploded, claimed that they had successful fertilizations and cell division, but that they had not allowed any of the foetuses to develop. Will try to find a citation.

Mageth

Chromosome number differences may not necessarily be a barrier to interbreeding. Note that the Przewalski horse has 66 chromosomes, while the domestic horse has 64, and they can interbreed to form a fertile hybrid with 65 chromosomes.

Horses and zebras have been crossbred to produce sterile offspring. Horses have 64 chromosomes and Zebras 44.

Cute pictures