Almost Us: Portraits of the Apes

by William H. Calvin

Monkeys just don’t “grab” the visitors in quite the same way as apes. It’s easy to see why. The apes look and act far more like humans than other animals. Apes are personable, even charming. I’m not the first to suggest that apes don’t fit either of the lay human-or-animal categories. They are in a category all to themselves, almost us. Yet apes are not well known to most people – most zoo visitors will be heard referring to them as “monkeys.” Apes are super monkeys (and humans are super apes). Portraits are how we “capture” human personalities, however incompletely and imperfectly, and here I use portraits to show you some glimpses into the expressions of our closest cousins. Ape portraits are quite logical for the first Kindle picture book. Apes are mostly colored black and white.

Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2005

About the author

William H. Calvin, Ph.D., is a theoretical neurobiologist, Affiliate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is the author of a dozen books, mostly for general readers, about brains and evolution.

(source)