Born in 1971 at the San Francisco Zoo, Koko the gorilla went on to become what has been, perhaps, the most famous primate in history. Under the mentorship of Penny Patterson, Koko became the first gorilla to master the art of American Sign Language – which was modified to accommodate the size of Koko’s hands and fingers and eventually referred to as Gorilla Sign Language, or GSL. With the ability to understand 2,000 spoken words and accurately sign 500 of them, Koko eventually achieved the ability to form strings of up to seven words at a time, creating rudimentary sentences. Her conceptualization is amazing, as well, considering the fact that she expresses an understanding of concepts which include pregnancy and death. A poet and artist, as well, Koko also enjoys making up her own words and has been tested at a level of 70-75 in the standard human IQ category – quite a feat, when you consider that the average human registers a score of about 100. From there, Koko began to frequent online chat rooms and, in fact, engaged in conversation via an AOL-hosted online chat in the latter part of April, 1998.
Like her gorilla cousin, Kanzi – a Bonobo chimp – was also able to understand and produce information in the form of lexigrams (symbols that are meant to represent certain words). The more astonishing part of the equation is that Kanzi could do so without prior training. While his mother – a Bonobo chimp by the name of Matata - was being trained in the area of communication (which she was never able to achieve) – Kanzi was able to pick up and master the information that his adoptive mother, Matata, was not. Also able to follow verbal requests or commands, Kanzi became proficient – as demonstrated on a TV appearance – such as, “Take off Sue’s shoe,” or “Give the dog a shot,” at which point he removed the correct shoe and then picked up a syringe from the floor and properly injected a toy stuffed dog. The little fellow didn’t stop there, either. Eventually, he taught himself how to create stone tools.