Lucy (chimpanzee) facts for kids
Lucy (1964–1987) was a chimpanzee owned by the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma, and raised by Maurice K. Temerlin, Ph.D., a psychotherapist and professor at the University of Oklahoma and his wife, Jane.
Background
Temerlin and his wife raised Lucy as if she were a human child, teaching her to eat with silverware, dress herself, flip through magazines, and sit in a chair at the dinner table. She was taught signs taken from American Sign Language by primatologist Roger Fouts as part of an ape language project and eventually learned 140 signs. She appeared in Life magazine. Around that time, the Temerlins introduced her for the first time to a male chimpanzee, and she was frightened and did not relate to him, let alone find him attractive. Fouts has written that when he arrived at Lucy's home at 8:30 every morning, Lucy would greet him with a hug, take the kettle, fill it with water, find two cups and tea bags, and serve the tea.
By the time she was 12, Lucy had become very strong and was very destructive in the Temerlin house. Eventually, she was shipped to a chimpanzee rehabilitation center in Gambia, accompanied by University of Oklahoma psychology graduate student Janis Carter. For years, Lucy was unable to relate to the other chimps in the rehabilitation center, and never reproduced. Lucy showed many signs of depression, including refusal to eat, and expressed "hurt" via sign language. Though her adopted Temerlin parents stayed with Lucy for only a few weeks in Gambia, Janis Carter remained at the Center for years, devoting a great deal of time to helping Lucy assimilate to life in the wild.
A year after leaving Lucy, Carter returned with some of Lucy's belongings. Lucy and a group of chimps greeted her, and Lucy embraced her, and then left with the other chimps without turning back, which Carter interpreted as Lucy having adapted to life as a chimpanzee.
Public radio coverage
In early 2010, Lucy's life-story was the subject of a one-hour Radiolab episode 702, "Lucy". Excerpts of this show were also included in the February 19, 2010, episode of This American Life, Episode 401, "Parent Trap". Both stories focus on Lucy's lifelong emotional stress.
Books by Temerlin
- Lucy: Growing Up Human: A Chimpanzee Daughter in a Psychotherapist's Family, Temerlin, Maurice. 1976 ISBN: 0-8314-0045-5
- Labelling Madness, Contributor, "Suggestion Effects in Psychiatric Diagnosis," Thomas J. Scheff, (ed.), Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1975.
- The Social Psychology of Clinical Diagnosis, University of Oklahoma, Dept. of Psychology 1966
See also
In Spanish: Lucy (chimpancé) para niños
