Chimpanzees may not forget a familiar face — or a behind, a new study says. In a recent experiment, captive primates were able to identify photos of their acquaintances' rears and match them with the right faces.
The ability suggests that the animals possess mental "whole body" representations of other chimps they know.
Each participating chimp was flashed a picture of another's bum, with visible genitals, then shown the face of the derriere's owner and another face of the same gender.
Both males and females were successful in this anatomical match game, pairing faces and posteriors with much greater frequency than chance alone—but only if the photos showed chimps they already knew.
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