The Great Apes

[Sully]

The curious case of the koolakamba:

The koolakamba is said to be a hybrid between a gorilla and a chimpanzee. Although a gorilla-chimp hybrid has not been verified ever in the wild or otherwise, the history of the koolakamba is storied.

Here is a brief overview of the history of the koolakamba
http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/aboutp/myths/koola.html

Here is a more detailed look (after a bizarre theory that gorillas are a hybrid between chimps and hogs)
http://www.macroevolution.net/hybrid-hyp...ion-5.html



Over the years, a number of koolookambas have been obtained from Gabon and elsewhere in equatorial West Africa. Some have even been displayed alive in zoos. Perhaps the most famous captive koolookamba was 'Mafuka', a large aggressive female brought from Gabon's Loango Coast and exhibited at Dresden Zoo in the 1870s. In 1877, primatologist A. B. Meyer (1877) asserted that Mafuka was a hybrid of chimpanzee and gorilla. This paper "initiated a storm of controversy that" ape expert W. C. O. Hill (1969, pp. 23-24) described as "not yet been finally settled."

Six years after Meyer’s assertion, another expert on the anthropoid apes, Robert Hartmann (1886, pp. 215-219), discussed the Mafuka dispute: "When I first saw this savage creature, early in September, 1875, it was full of vigour, and I was almost convinced that I saw a female gorilla, not quite an adult, an opinion shared by such zoologists as K. Th. von Siebold and others, while it is vehemently opposed by Bolau [1876] and A. B. Meyer [1877]." Hartmann goes on (p. 220) to express his own doubts about Mafuka’s classification. In the end, he wrote: "For me and many other naturalists Mafuka remains up to this time an enigma, which is slurred over by others with a few phrases." At one point (pp. 218-219), he admits having leaned toward the idea that she was a hybrid.




Front and side profile of Mafuka:

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*This image is copyright of its original author

Front and side profile of a chimp:

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Gorilla front and side profile:

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*This image is copyright of its original author

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