Chimpanzee who could draw and count dies at age 49

2026-01-14 21:50:26Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
The Chimpanzee Ai

The 49-year-old chimpanzee Ai, famous for her abilities, has died, leaving a lasting legacy in the search for primate cognition, the Japanese institute where she lived reports.

The Kyoto University Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior says he died on January 9 due to age and organ failure.

The chimpanzee was born in West Africa and arrived in Japan in 1977. There she became the focus of the Ai Project, a research program into the “chimpanzee mind.”

Some of the institute's most famous findings were that Ai could use numbers and recognize colors. When she was 18 months old, scientists gave her a special keyboard connected to a computer to study her memory and learning.

At the age of 5, Ai “mastered counting from 1-6 and could name the number, color, and sample objects of 300 types.”

In her free time, she enjoyed drawing and painting. Unlike other chimpanzees, Ai could draw on blank paper without the need for food as a reward.

A Japanese media outlet reported that it once escaped from its cage with another monkey using a key.

In 2000, Ai gave birth to Ayumu, who also has an extraordinary memory.


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