A young chimpanzee habitually carries around the corpse of a dead rat and places it atop another ape who is asleep the victim of this prank awakes and reacts with disgust, 'loudly screaming and wildly shaking her body to get this ugly thing off her,' he writes. Mama is the hook for de Waal's broader argument, in which he chips away, example by example, at any notion of human exceptionalism in the emotional realm. This encounter was a rare exception that occurred only owing to Mama's weakened state.)Ī video of their encounter later went viral. (Given chimpanzees' immense strength and sometimes volatile personalities, ordinarily it's quite dangerous for humans to approach them in this way. 'Her fingers rhythmically pat the back of his head and neck,' reassuring her friend that it is okay to be so close. 'She gently strokes his hair,' de Waal recounts, and pulls him closer. An elderly friend whom she had known for four decades but had not recently seen, biology professor Jan van Hooff, visited her to say goodbye.Īs van Hooff crouches down towards the ailing chimpanzee, Mama reaches for his head. In 2016, at almost 59 years of age, Mama was near death. A skilled negotiator who exerted immense influence over the other chimpanzees in her group, Mama was an individual for whom de Waal felt enormous respect and affection: 'I had never sensed such wisdom and poise in any species other than my own.' (Thirty-seven years ago, Mama was already a memorable figure in de Waal's first book, Chimpanzee Politics.) Mama, the animal of the book's title, was the matriarch of the chimpanzee colony at Burgers Zoo in Arnhem, the Netherlands.

Pigs experience hope, which we know because if raised in decent conditions they anticipate that pleasurable things will happen to them.Īs primate behavior researcher Frans de Waal writes in his new book Mama's Last Hug, publishing in early March, 'emotions are everywhere in the animal kingdom, from fish to birds to insects and even in brainy mollusks such as the octopus.' Through colorful stories and riveting prose, de Waal firmly puts to rest the stubborn notion that humans alone in the animal kingdom experience a broad array of emotions. Rats' faces express joy when the animals are tickled.įairness matters to monkeys when food offered to their social partners is of higher quality than what they themselves receive, they become highly agitated. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Mama's Last Hug Subtitle Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves Author Frans de Waal

Mama's Last Hug by Frans de Waal