No, chimpanzees and other great apes cannot breed with monkeys. Even though we often think of primates – the order of mammals that includes great apes such as chimps and ourselves, gibbons, monkeys and much smaller mainly arboreal creatures such as bushbabies, galagos and lemurs – as being closely related, the common ancestor for this group goes back tens of millions of years.
How long ago?
The animals that became great apes split from those that became monkeys an estimated 25-30 million years ago. That’s a lot of time for them not just to become a multitude of separate species, but also for them to evolve different numbers of chromosomes. Chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans all have 48 chromosomes, but monkeys have anywhere between 42 (so-called Old World monkeys, which are found in Africa and Asia) and 54-62 (the New World monkeys – those that live in the Americas). That makes them reproductively incompatible.
- What's the difference between humans and apes? And when did we first appear?
- Can humans and chimpanzees interbreed?
Can any primate species interbreed?
Yes, quite a few. For example, in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park, yellow and olive (or anubis) baboons hybridise quite freely when they meet and produce healthy, fertile offspring. The lead scientist of that study, Professor Jenny Tung from Duke University, says somewhere between 20-30 per cent of all primate species interbreed with one another. That was even true of humans – somewhere between 2-5 per cent of our DNA comes from other hominids, notably Neanderthals.
What other primates can mate with each other?
Various species of macaque such as rhesus, Japanese, crab-eating can, and hybrids occur in both the wild and captivity. But like the yellow and olive baboons, they are in the same genus (Macaca in the case of the macaques, Papio in the case of the baboons), which is often, though not always, the litmus test for separate species being able to interbreed.
- What are the smallest monkeys and primates in the world? Meet the tiny creatures of the monkey world
Any others?
Marmosets and tamarins (both monkeys from the Americas) can, while white-handed and pileated gibbons (both members of the Hylobates genus) have been shown to successfully interbreed in Khao Yai National Park inThailand. It’s even been shown that one particular individual was the offspring of a northern white-cheeked gibbon in the Nomascus genus and a lar gibbon in the Hylobates genus. This is particularly remarkable because these two species have different numbers of chromosomes.
Can any great apes interbreed?
Yes – chimpanzees and bonobos (sometimes called pygmy chimpanzees). It’s not known if this happens in the wild, because they are naturally geographically separated by the Congo River. Bonobos are only found south of it, while chimpanzees only to the north and have a much wider distribution. However, it is known that between 1991 and 2000, a male bonobo at a circus in France fathered seven offspring with female chimpanzees.
Scientists who observed the hybrid animals reported that in each individual there were “anatomical features reminiscent of both of the parental specie”. It has been speculated that upstream of the Boyoma Falls on the Congo, the river can be easily crossed when the water level is low, and so the opportunity for natural interbreeding could present itself, but no evidence for it has ever been found.
