Ape

Basic Information

An ape is a tailless primate of the superfamily hominoidea, which is traditionally divided into the lesser apes (mostly gibbons), the greater apes (including chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans) and humans, although modern, DNA based schema figure things slightly differently¹.

Confusingly the term "ape" may have originally meant baboon, which is actually a monkey, and several other brands of tailless monkey are also commonly known as apes.

Apes are generally omnivorous with a variable (and usually fairly low) percentage of meat in their diet² and native to tropical and sub-tropical regions of the Old World, mostly in the jungles of Africa and Asia. With a few exceptions, apes are larger than monkeys and are agile tree climbers.

Sources

Bibliography

The Other Wiki on Apes: label : full source reference

Game and Story Use

• Fiction is full of people teaching apes to talk … the more realistic versions have them learning sign language to account for their non-human voice boxes. A communicative ape might make a useful NPC (or even PC with a skilled player).
• All current and apparent apes are primarily herbivorous, despite the occasional meat meal for some species … a primarily carnivorous ape would be an interesting and dangerous form of wildlife for somewhere. Enough of them would probably make the area unihabitable.
• There is little record of apes fishing … one that did would make for interesting set dressing if nothing else.

Footnotes

1. The gibbons are still on their own, but the rest are filed in a relational tree that splits the orangutans off early, then the gorillas and leaves the chimps close to the humans for quite a while.

2. gorillas spend most of their lives chewing leaves whilst chimpanzees have been shown to use quite sophisticated tactics in the hunting of monkeys - there is something of a spectrum. Most species eat a lot of fruit.