chimpanzee, however, you’d probably respond to my theft with instantaneous, uninhibited violence. Unless I were the dominant male in the troop, without pausing to think, you’d give me a thumping and retrieve your book. One widely reported case of this sort of reactive aggression that is only too common among chimpanzees involved an adult chimp named Travis who had spent his entire life peacefully as part of Sandra and Jerome Herold’s family. Then, in February 2009, at the age of fifteen, he flew off the handle after one of Sandra’s friends, Charla, picked up one of his favorite toys. Travis’s
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