Animal Fact File: Chimpanzees

Everything you never knew you needed to know about chimps

What animal laughs during play, uses tools to solve problems, and shares nearly 99% of its DNA with you? Meet the chimpanzee — one of the smartest and most fascinating animals on Earth.

This fact file takes you on a journey into the world of chimpanzees, from the rainforests and savannas they call home to the remarkable ways they communicate, work together, and care for their families. Along the way, discover how chimpanzees use tools, build friendships, raise their young, and face challenges in the wild.

Teachers and parents, you can use this fact file to:

• Introduce an animal, wildlife, or life science unit
• Support nonfiction reading and vocabulary practice
• Explore animal adaptations, behaviors, and habitats
• Compare animals and the ecosystems they live in
• Practice finding and organizing information from nonfiction texts
• Prepare students for animal research projects or presentations (use our animal report templates!)
• Connect science learning to conservation and environmental issues
• Pair with videos, articles, or other informational texts (see Related Resources below)

In Clever Chimpanzees, naturalist Steve Backshall comes across chimps in the Loango National Park in Gabon. He watches them engage in behaviors he has never seen before, including working together to get honey. This video is excerpted from BBC's Deadly 60, an award-winning nature and adventure show for kids in which narrator Steve Backshall has one mission: to travel the globe in search of 60 of the world's deadliest animals.

A troop of 150 chimpanzees. That's not a typo — it's the largest chimp community ever recorded in Africa, and they all live in one stretch of forest in Uganda. Sir David Attenborough takes you inside their world in this clip from BBC's Planet Earth, and it's not exactly peaceful. Chimps are unusual among jungle animals — they move just as easily through the treetops as they do on the ground, which comes in handy when your diet depends on finding enough fig trees to feed 150 mouths. But a community this size needs serious territory to sustain it, and that means defending it.

Watch as the troop uses coordinated calls to launch a raid into a rival group's land. Once they cross into enemy territory, everything changes: the calls stop, the pace slows, and every chimp is on high alert, listening for signs of who — and how many — they're up against.

It's a side of chimpanzees you don't usually see: strategic, tense, and surprisingly military in style. Great conversation starter for anything on animal behavior, group dynamics, or how intelligence shows up in unexpected ways.

In How Chimpanzees Use Tools, narrator Sir David Attenborough investigates how young chimpanzees are taught how to crack nuts by their mothers. Young chimps can take up to 10 years to master this skill. This video is excerpted from BBC’s Seven Worlds, One Planet, a series featuring remarkable animal behavior from all seven continents.

In Jane Goodall's Life Among the Chimpanzees, host Dermot O'Leary explores the groundbreaking work of a young woman who transformed our understanding of animal behavior and human origins. Jane Goodall’s determination and pioneering spirit took her from a typist in Bournemouth to a world-renowned primatologist. This video is excerpted from BBC’s Icons: The Greatest Person of the 20th Century, a documentary series celebrating the achievements of the most influential figures of the era.