Social Structure; Growing up Chimp

Young chimp spends most of his or her early years with their mom as a constant companion.  In fact, young chimps stay with their mothers for a long time – they are about 5 years old when they stop nursing and about 10 years old before they are ready to go out on their own.  Because a young chimp takes so long to mature, female chimps don’t have a lot of offspring in their lifetime.  Many large mammals reproduce every year and therefore a population can maintain its size if hunting pressure is not too high.  For chimpanzees, this is not possible.  For example, if a chimp mother lost one of her offspring when it was 5 years of age, this would mean that she would be able to produce only 1 offspring in 10 years (about a third of her reproductive lifetime!).  Looked at this way, you can easily see how chimpanzee populations cannot take high levels of hunting.

Chimps are complex primates, and have to learn much of the skills necessary to survive in the wild.  They learn where food sources are and how to get to them.  Skills like cracking nuts, and using a stick to collect termites from their nest are all known to be utilized by chimps, but must be learned.  Chimps sleep in a nest with their mother until about 7-10 years of age.  Play is of course an important learning forum for the young chimp.  Everyone in the group plays with a young chimp, and if there is more than one young, they of course play together.