What actually distinguishes us from our closest relatives in the animal kingdom? The Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center (WKPRC) at Leipzig Zoo has been providing answers to this question for 25 years. Here, scientists research the thinking and behavior of four great ape species under unique conditions - and thus the foundations of what makes humans human.
Since April 2001, the Leipzig Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) has been running the WKPRC, nicknamed "Pongoland". Around 50 great apes live there: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans.
Leipzig connects the world of primate research
"The fact that we can combine research, animal welfare and transparency for visitors so closely is largely due to the excellent cooperation with Leipzig Zoo," says Daniel Haun, Director of the Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology at the MPI-EVA.
In order to answer even bigger questions, Leipzig researchers founded the ManyPrimates network in 2019. It connects research stations from all over the world and pools data on dozens of primate species. An initial study on short-term memory already included over 400 animals from more than 40 species at almost 30 locations. In the future, the WKPRC wants to continue to be a key location for science, showing how close we are to our animal relatives and how much we can still learn from them.
