Column Animals

A ‘talking’ ape’s death signals the end of an era

Kanzi the bonobo, who understood spoken English and could communicate symbolically, died this year

By Erin Wayman

Managing Editor, Print and Longform

A photo of a large bonobo in a lab. The ape is looking at a woman holding up a page of symbols and pointing at one.

Kanzi the bonobo, shown here in 2006 with psychologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, used symbols on a board to com­municate with humans.

WILLIAM H. CALVIN, PH.D./WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Barbara J. King remembers the first time she met Kanzi the bonobo. It was the late 1990s, and the ape was living in a research center in Georgia.