The Naked Ape

by Desmond Morris

  It has been suggested that it was this progression in the dog relationship that made possible the earliest forms of ungulate prey domestication. The goats, sheep and reindeer were under some degree of control before the advent of the true agricultural phase, and the improved dog is envisaged as the vital agent that made this feasible by assisting in the large-scale and long-term herding of these animals. Studies of the driving behaviour of present-day sheepdogs and of wild wolves reveal many similarities in technique and provide strong support for this view.

  During more recent times, intensified selective breeding has produced a whole range of symbiotic dog specializations. The primitive all-purpose hunting dog assisted in all stages of the operation, but his later descendants were perfected for one or other of the different components of the overall behaviour sequence. Individual dogs with unusually well-developed abilities in a particular direction were inbred to intensify their special advantages. As we have already seen, those with good qualities in manœuvring became herding dogs, their contribution being confined largely to the rounding up of domesticated prey (sheepdogs). Others, with a superior sense of smell, were inbred as scent-trackers (hounds). Others, with an athletic turn of speed, became coursing dogs and were employed to chase after prey by sight (greyhounds). Another group were bred as prey-spotters, their tendency to ‘freeze’ when locating the prey being exploited and intensified (setters and pointers). Yet another line was improved as prey-finders and carriers (retrievers). Small breeds were developed as vermin-killers (terriers). The primitive watch-dogs were genetically improved as guard-dogs (mastiffs).

  In addition to these widespread forms of exploitation, other dog lines have been selectively bred for more unusual functions. The most extraordinary example is the hairless dog of the ancient New World Indians, a genetically naked breed with an abnormally high skin temperature that was used as a primitive form of hot-water bottle in their sleeping quarters.

  In more recent times, the symbiotic dog has earned his keep as beast of burden, pulling sledges or carts, as a messenger or a mine-detector during times of war, as a rescue operator, locating climbers buried under snow, as a police dog, tracking or attacking criminals, as a guide dog, leading the blind, and even as a substitute space-traveller. No other symbiotic species has served us in such a complex and varied way. Even today, with all our technological advances, the dog is still actively employed in most of his functional roles. Many of the hundreds of breeds that can now be distinguished are purely ornamental, but the day of the dog with a serious task to perform is far from over.

  So successful has the dog been as a hunting companion that few attempts have been made to domesticate other species in this particular form of symbiosis. The only important exceptions are the cheetah and certain birds of prey, especially the falcon, but in neither case has any progress been made with regard to controlled breeding, let alone selective breeding. Individual training has always been required. In Asia the cormorant, a diving bird, has been used as an active companion in the hunt for fish. Cormorant eggs are taken and hatched out under domestic chickens. The young sea-birds are then hand-reared and trained to catch fish on the end of a line. The fish are brought back to the boats and disgorged, the cormorants having been fitted with a collar to prevent them swallowing their prey. But here again no attempt has been made to improve the stock by selective breeding.

  Another ancient form of exploitation involves the use of small carnivores as pest-destroyers. This trend did not gain momentum until the agricultural phase of our history. With the development of large-scale grain storage, rodents became a serious problem and rodent-killers were encouraged. The cat, the ferret and the mongoose were the species that came to our aid and in the first two cases full domestication with selective breeding followed.

  Perhaps the most important kind of symbiosis has been the utilization of certain larger species as beasts of burden. Horses, onagers (Asiatic wild asses), donkeys (African wild asses), cattle, including the water buffalo and the yak, reindeer, camels, llamas and elephants have all been subjected to massive exploitation in this way. In most of these cases the original wild types have been ‘improved’ by careful selective breeding, the exceptions to this rule being the onager and the elephant. The onager was being used as a beast of burden by the ancient Sumerians over four thousand years ago, but was rendered obsolete by the introduction of a more easily controlled species, the horse. The elephant, although still employed as a working animal, has always offered too big a challenge to the stock-breeder and has never been submitted to the pressures of selective breeding.

  A further category concerns the domestication of a variety of species as sources of produce. The animals are not killed, so that in this role they cannot be considered as prey. Only certain parts are taken from them: milk from cattle and goats, wool from sheep and alpaca, eggs from chickens and ducks, honey from bees and silk from silk-moths.

  In addition to these major categories of hunting companions, pest-destroyers, beasts of burden, and sources of produce, certain animals have entered a symbiotic relationship with our species on a more unusual and specialized basis. The pigeon has been domesticated as a message-carrier. The astonishing homing abilities of this bird have been exploited for thousands of years. This relationship became so valuable in times of war that, during recent epochs, a counter-symbiosis was developed in the form of falcons trained to intercept the message-carriers. In a very different context, Siamese fighting fish and fighting cocks have been selectively bred over a long period as gambling devices. In the realm of medicine, the guinea-pig and the white rat have been widely employed as ‘living test-beds’ for laboratory experiments.

  These, then, are the major symbionts, animals that have been forced into some form of partnership with our ingenious species. The advantage to them is that they cease to be our enemies. Their numbers are dramatically increased. In terms of world populations they are tremendously successful. But it is a qualified success. The price they have paid is their evolutionary freedom. They have lost their genetic independence and, although well fed and cared for, are now subject to our breeding whims and fancies.

  The third major category of animal relationships, after prey and symbionts, is that of competitors. Any species which competes with us for food or space, or interferes with the efficient running of our lives, is ruthlessly eliminated. There is no point in listing such species. Virtually any animal that is either inedible or symbiotically useless is attacked and exterminated. This process is continuing today in all parts of the world. In the case of minor competitors, the persecution is haphazard, but serious rivals stand little chance. In the past our closest primate relatives have been our most threatening rivals and it is no accident that today we are the only species surviving in our entire family. Large carnivores have been our other serious competitors and these too have been eliminated wherever the population density of our species has risen above a certain level. Europe, for example, is now virtually denuded of all large forms of animal life, save for a great seething mass of naked apes.

  For the next major category, that of parasites, the future looks even more bleak. Here the fight is intensified and although we may mourn the passing of an attractive food rival, no one will shed a tear over the increasing rarity of the flea. As medical science progresses, the grip of the parasites dwindles. In its wake this brings an added threat to all the other species, for as the parasites go and our health increases, our populations can swell at an even more startling rate, thus accentuating the need to eliminate all the milder competitors.

  The fifth major category, the predators, are also on the way out. We have never really constituted a main diet component for any species, and our numbers have never been seriously reduced by predation at any stage in our history, as far as we can tell. But the larger carnivores, such as the big cats and the wild dogs, the bigger members of the crocodile family, the sharks and the more massive birds of prey have nibbled away at us from time to time and their days ar
e clearly numbered. Ironically, the killer that has accounted for more naked-ape deaths than any other (parasites excepted) is one that cannot devour the nutritious corpses it produces. This deadly enemy is the venomous snake and, as we shall see later, this has become the most hated of all higher forms of animal life.

  These five categories of inter-specific relationships – prey, symbiont, competitor, parasite and predator – are the ones that can be found to exist between other pairs of species. Basically, we are not unique in these respects. We carry the relationships much further than other species, but they are the same types of relationships. As I said earlier, they can be lumped together as the economic approach to animals. In addition we have our own special approaches, the scientific, the aesthetic and the symbolic.

  The scientific and aesthetic attitudes are manifestations of our powerful exploratory drive. Our curiosity, our inquisitiveness, urges us on to investigate all natural phenomena and the animal world has naturally been the focus of much attention in this respect. To the zoologist, all animals are, or should be, equally interesting. To him there are no bad species or good species. He studies them all, exploring them for their own sake. The aesthetic approach involves the same basic exploration, but with different terms of reference. Here, the enormous variety of animal shapes, colours, patterns and movements are studied as objects of beauty rather than as systems for analysis.

  The symbolic approach is entirely different. In this case, neither economics nor exploration are involved. The animals are employed instead as personifications of concepts. If a species looks fierce, it becomes a war-symbol. If it looks clumsy and cuddly, it becomes a child-symbol. Whether it is genuinely fierce or genuinely cuddly matters little. Its true nature is not investigated in this context, for this is not a scientific approach. The cuddly animal may be bristling with razor-sharp teeth and be endowed with a vicious aggressiveness, but providing these attributes are not obvious and its cuddliness is, it is perfectly acceptable as the ideal child-symbol. For the symbolic animal, justice does not have to be done, it has only to appear to be done.

  The symbolic attitude to animals was originally christened the ‘anthropoidomorphic’ approach. Mercifully, this ugly term was later contracted to ‘anthropomorphic’ which, although still clumsy, is the expression in general use today. It is invariably used in a derogatory sense by scientists who, from their point of view, are fully justified in scorning it. They must retain their objectivity at all costs if they are to make meaningful explorations into the animal world. But this is not as easy as it may sound.

  Quite apart from deliberate decisions to use animal forms as idols, images and emblems, there are also subtle, hidden pressures working on us all the time that force us to see other species as caricatures of ourselves. Even the most sophisticated scientist is liable to say, ‘Hallo, old boy’ when greeting his dog. Although he knows perfectly well that the animal cannot understand his words, he cannot resist the temptation. What is the nature of these anthropomorphic pressures and why are they so difficult to overcome? Why do some creatures make us say ‘Aah’ and others make us say ‘Ugh!’? This is no trivial consideration. A vast amount of our present culture’s inter-specific energies is involved here. We are passionate animal lovers and animal haters, and these involvements cannot be explained on the basis of economic and exploratory considerations alone. Clearly some kind of unsuspected, basic response is being triggered off inside us by the specific signals we are receiving. We delude ourselves that we are responding to the animal as an animal. We declare that it is charming, irresistible, or horrible, but what makes it so?

  In order to find the answer to this question we must first assemble some facts. What exactly are the animal loves and animal hates of our culture and how do they vary with age and sex? Quantitative evidence is required on a large scale if reliable statements are to be made on this topic. To obtain such evidence an investigation was carried out involving 80,000 British children between the ages of four and fourteen. During a zoo television programme they were asked the simple questions: ‘Which animal do you like most?’ and ‘Which animal do you dislike most?’ From the massive response to this inquiry a sample of 12,000 replies to each question was selected at random and analysed.

  Dealing first with the inter-specific ‘loves’, how did the various groups of animals fare? The figures are as follows: 97.15 per cent of all the children quoted a mammal of some kind as their top favourite. Birds accounted for only 1.6 per cent, reptiles 1.0 per cent, fish 0.1 per cent, invertebrates 0.1 per cent, and amphibians 0.05 per cent. Obviously there is something special about mammals in this context.

  (It should perhaps be pointed out that the replies to the questions were written, not spoken, and it was sometimes difficult to identify the animals from the names given, especially in the case of very young children. It was easy enough to decipher loins, hores, bores, penny kings, panders, tapers and leapolds, but almost impossible to be certain of the species referred to as bettle twigs, the skipping worm, the otamus, or the coco-cola beast. Entries supporting these appealing creatures were reluctantly rejected.)

  If we now narrow our sights to the ‘top ten animal loves’ the figures emerge as follows: 1. Chimpanzee (13.5 per cent). 2. Monkey (13 per cent). 3. Horse (9 per cent). 4. Bushbaby (8 per cent). 5. Panda (7.5 per cent). 6. Bear (7 per cent). 7. Elephant (6 per cent). 8. Lion (5 per cent). 9. Dog (4 per cent). 10. Giraffe (2.5 per cent).

  It is immediately clear that these preferences do not reflect powerful economic or aesthetic influences. A list of the ten most important economic species would read very differently. Nor are these animal favourites the most elegant and brightly coloured of species. They include instead a high proportion of rather clumsy, heavy-set and dully coloured forms. They are, however, well endowed with anthropomorphic features and it is to these that the children are responding when making their choices. This is not a conscious process. Each of the species listed provides certain key stimuli strongly reminiscent of special properties of our own species, and to these we react automatically without any realization of what it is exactly that appeals to us. The most significant of these anthropomorphic features in the top ten animals are as follows:

  1. They all have hair, rather than feathers or scales. 2. They have rounded outlines (chimpanzee, monkey, bushbaby, panda, bear, elephant). 3. They have flat faces (chimpanzee, monkey, bushbaby, bear, panda, lion). 4. They have facial expressions (chimpanzee, monkey, horse, lion, dog). 5. They can ‘manipulate’ small objects (chimpanzee, monkey, bushbaby, panda, elephant). 6. Their postures are in some ways, or at some times, rather vertical (chimpanzee, monkey, bushbaby, panda, bear, giraffe).

  The more of these points a species can score, the higher up the top ten list it comes. Non-mammalian species fare badly because they are weak in these respects. Amongst the birds, the top favourites are the penguin (0.8 per cent) and the parrot (0.2 per cent). The penguin achieves the number one avian position because it is the most vertical of all the birds. The parrot also sits more vertically on its perch than most birds and it has several other special advantages. Its beak shape gives it an unusually flattened face for a bird. It also feeds in a strange way, bringing its foot up to its mouth rather than lowering its head, and it can mimic our vocalizations. Unfortunately for its popularity, it lowers itself into a more horizontal posture when walking and in this way loses points heavily to the vertically waddling penguin.

  Amongst the top mammals there are several special points worth noting. Why, for instance, is the lion the only one of the big cats to be included? The answer appears to be that it alone, in the male, has a heavy mane of hair surrounding the head region. This has the effect of flattening the face (as is clear from the way lions are portrayed in children’s drawings) and helps to score extra points for this species.

  Facial expressions are particularly important, as we have already seen in earlier chapters, as basic forms of visual communication in our species. They have evolved in a complex form in
only a few groups of mammals – the higher primates, the horses, the dogs and the cats. It is no accident that five of the top ten favourites belong to these groups. Changes in facial expression indicate changes in mood and this provides a valuable link between the animal and ourselves, even though the correct significance of the expressions is not always precisely understood.

  As regards manipulative ability, the panda and the elephant are unique cases. The former has evolved an elongated wrist bone with which it can grasp the thin bamboo sticks on which it feeds. A structure of this kind is found nowhere else in the animal kingdom. It gives the flat-footed panda the ability to hold small objects and bring them up to its mouth while sitting in a vertical posture. Anthropomorphically this scores heavily in its favour. The elephant is also capable of ‘manipulating’ small objects with its trunk, another unique structure, and taking them up to its mouth.

  The vertical posture so characteristic of our species gives any other animal that can adopt this position an immediate anthropomorphic advantage. The primates in the top ten list, the bears and the panda all sit up vertically on frequent occasions. Sometimes they may even stand vertically or go so far as to take a few faltering steps in this position, all of which helps them to score valuable points. The giraffe, by virtue of its unique body proportions, is, in a sense, permanently vertical. The dog, which achieves such a high anthropomorphic score for its social behaviour, has always been something of a postural disappointment. It is uncompromisingly horizontal. Refusing to accept defeat on this point, our ingenuity went to work and soon solved the problem – we taught the dog to sit up and beg. In our urge to anthropomorphize the poor creature, we went further still. Being tailless ourselves, we started docking its tail. Being flat-faced ourselves, we employed selective breeding to reduce the bone structure in the snout region. As a result, many dog breeds are now abnormally flat-faced. Our anthropomorphic desires are so demanding that they have to be satisfied, even at the expense of the animals’ dental efficiency. But then we must recall that this approach to animals is a purely selfish one. We are not seeing animals as animals, but merely as reflections of ourselves, and if the mirror distorts too badly we either bend it into shape or discard it.