rity to a young human child. She was constantly moving around, playing with branches, climbing trees, and playing with her infant sister. At one point, she even climbed up about 30 feet into the air on a leafless tree, and sat at the top observing her surroundings. My initial reaction to the troop was amazement at how similar these creatures were to human beings. I came to the zoo with a pre-conceived notion that primates were much less civilized than humans, and had no real order to how they spent their time. What I did not expect was how visibly different each of their roles were in the troop, and how easy it was to recognize each one based on how they were behaving.

The family structure that I observed was remarkably similar to that of a human family. The mother was the primary nurturer for the children, while the father sat isolated for most of the time. The obvious difference between the species is that us humans have society, art, music, and other things that set us apart from the animals. Socially though, I believe that we are incredibly similar. The way each member of the troop spends their time, either sitting isolated or climbing a tree etc., relates to human social interaction tremendously. I left the zoo shocked at the similarities between us, which left me with a new understanding of how we could have possi

Some topics in this essay:
, juvenile female, watching juvenile, mother resting, troop observed, similarity human, human family, juvenile females, 30 feet,