We are territorial, power-hungry and even more brutal than chimpanzees.

When it comes to social interaction, the chimpanzees appear to be just as intelligent as we are.

It is well known that apes in the wild offer spontaneous assistance to each other, defending against leopards, say, or consoling distressed companions with tender embraces.

The development of family entities enables men to cooperate far more effectively. Instead of constantly competing for the women with other men, each man essentially has a partner assigned to him, one with whom he can establish a family.

Male chimpanzees have an extraordinarily strong drive for dominance. They're constantly jockeying for position.

Most exotic animals are not particularly interested in people, which makes it hard to provoke them. Human-rearing gets them used to and sometimes imprinted on humans, which makes them potentially dangerous.

Although elephants are far more distantly related to us than the great apes, they seem to have evolved similar social and cognitive capacities.