Individual apes involved in language studies

female gorilla and research subject

first chimpanzee who was taught Amslan

thumb|Savage-Rumbaugh (L), Kanzi (R), and his sister Panbanisha (C) working at the portable "keyboard" Kanzi (October 28, 1980 – March 18, 2025) was a male bonobo who was the subject of numerous studies on great ape language and cognition. According to Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a primatologist who has studied the bonobo since the 1990s, Kanzi exhibited advanced linguistic aptitude.

chimpanzee

Chantek (December 17, 1977 – August 7, 2017), born at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, was a male hybrid Sumatran/Bornean orangutan who demonstrated a number of intellectual skills, including the use of several signs adapted from American Sign Language (ASL). American anthropologists Lyn Miles and Ann Southcombe worked with Chantek. In 1997, he was transferred to Zoo Atlanta, where he lived for another twenty years.

chimpanzee raised by Maurice K. Temerlin