They have very complex social behaviors compared to other animals in the animal kingdom. This is shown through their facial expressions, verbal communications, and ability to construct simple tools for various activities. 

Great apes give birth to one offspring at a time and must wait several years between each birth. Mothers stay with their young for an extended period of time and raise them until they mature. Social bonds are primarily between mother and child.
Habitat: Most great ape populations are concentrated in Africa and some are in Asia. Humans are found all over the globe. 

Location and Habitat:
Chimpanzees live in many habitats including dry savannas, evergreen rain forests, mountainous ares, and swamp forests. Their many habitats allows chimps to adapt rather quickly. Most species live in the equatorial region of Africa.
Physical Characteristics:
Subspecies of chimpanzees do not live very far apart, as a result, morphology between subspecies of is not significantly different. Common chimps have a robust build; men weigh 88.2-132 lbs and women weigh 70.5-104 lbs. On average all chimps are about 2.68 ft tall. They have black or brown hair with hairless ears, fingers, feet soles, and faces, white beards (male and female), and white ends on their bottoms.
Behavioral characteristics:
Chimps either walk on knuckles or on two legs. Half their time is spent in trees and the other time they are on the ground as they may establish sleeping nests in either location. A large portion of their day consists of eating and moving around to find more food sources. Chimps have mental maps in order to hunt for food efficiently, which proves their advanced intelligence compared to other species in the animal kingdom.  Lifespan is about 40-45 years old. Gestation is about 8 months; offspring stay close to their mothers for 6-9 years. Diet includes fruit, leaves, seeds, bark, insects, birds, honey, soil, bird’s eggs. 

Location and Habitat:
They can be found within a 273,746 square mile range throughouteast central and equatorial west Africa including Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Angola, and far-western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Their habitat consists of lowlands and swamps. The most elevated they can live is 5249 ft above sea level. In mixed swamp habitats, there is a dry season (December-March)  and a rainy season (August-November) About 5 ft of rain a year. 
Physical characteristics:
Dark brown or black hair with black skin; western gorillas have brown hair on head. Most adult males grow silver fur extending from their shoulders to their back side to show superiority. Men have a more visible and exaggerated sagittal crest; a point at the top of the head where the skull bones meet. Male and female have different external characteristics; men weigh up to 400 lbs in nature, but in captivity, they can weigh 500 lbs. Height is about 5.5 ft. Females weigh between 159 and 216 lbs. Height about 4.9 ft.
Behavioral characteristics:
They are quadrupedal knuckle walkers,  but sometimes upright. Sometimes climbs trees; adults must climb trees with thick trunks in order to sustain their weight. They alternate between rest periods, travel periods, and feeding periods; it is a continuous cycle. Their habitat lacks terrestrial herbs, but there is an abundance of aquatic herbs and herbaceous vegetation. Fruit is a major component of their diet, as a result their feeding courses range the largest out of any gorilla (From about 2.7-5.41 miles). Each day, western gorilla travel about .68 of a mile. Termites and ants are key as well.
They travel in groups less than 20. They do not live in bachelor groups (always a breeding female). And if a silver back dies in a group, each female migrates to a new group to seek protection from males. Groups include one silver back, several females, and their offspring. 
Females carry offspring for 8.5 months. Mothers must take care of the children for many years during development, the fathers are important because they help develop social traits. 
After about 6 years, the offspring does not have to constantly be attached to their mothers, but it takes three years without breast feeding before the female can reproduce again. The average lifespan is about 30-40 years old in the wild and up to 50 years in captivity.
Gorillas communicate with a series of grunt sounds that all signify different meanings; most communication occurs during feeding times. This is demonstrating high levels of intelligence. 

Location and Habitat:
Bornean orangutans live in isolated fragments of the oldest forests on Earth and are concentrated in the Southeast Asian Island of Borneo. The orangutans live in hilly, mountainous areas and locations with lowland swamps.They often travel to  grasslands, cultivated fields, gardens, young secondary forest, and shallow lakes. Swampy areas and lowlands provide a vast supply of fruit and insects.
Physical characteristics:
They have thin, rough orange, brown, or maroon hair. At birth, faces are pink, but they darken to black as they grow up. Most males develop droopy throat pouches and exaggerated cheek pads, which are covered in short hairs. Flanged males are socially considered adults. Females prefer to mate with the flanged males. 
Their fingers and toes are curved to help grab things easily. Males weigh about 192 lbs and are about 3.18 ft tall. Females weigh on average 81.6 lbs and are 2.56 ft tall. 

Behavioral characteristics:
Their time is spent either on the ground or in trees. They move horizontally through trees with both their hands and feet, using their opposable thumbs and big toes to help them move quickly. When they are on the ground, they walk on their fists, and sometimes walk on two feet. 

They eat mostly fruit and insects including buds, open flowers, young leaves, bark, sap, vines, orchids, reed roots, bird eggs, spider webs, termites, caterpillars, ants, fungi, and honey. They often times consume more calories than necessary, and therefore, struggle with obesity. They spend their days eating, resting, and traveling to find more food. Males eat more and spend more time eating each day than females. They have two peak eating times, one in the morning, and the other in the late afternoon. On average they travel about .491 miles a day in search for new sleeping and eating areas and prepare their nests in ther new location at night. 
Females carry offspring for 8.6 months. Fathers have no relationship with offspring so mothers and older siblings help develop young orangutan. Adolescence ranges between age 5 and 8. Once offspring reach that stage, they can start to search for another group to live in. Due to adolescence age, there may be up to eight years between births; there is a very limited time for reproduction and a lot of mating competition. Lifespan is up to 50 to 60 years in the wild. 

Orangutans are very intelligent. They use materials to make useful tools and communicate with one another. However, they are semi-solitary so communication is not as important to them compared to other great apes. 

Gigantopithecus blacki are thought to be the last common ancestors of early hominins, who had thick enamel indicating they ate plants. Gigantopithecus blacki may be an extinct branch derived from early hominins during the very beginning of its evolution.

Lucy shows evidence of evolution because she seems to be a transition from great apes to the first hominins. Her appearance and brain size were ape-like, but she walked on two feet like hominins. Lucy and other Australopithecus afarensis closed the gap between chimpanzees and human divergence. Her teeth had traces of grass and meat, meaning great apes were starting to transition from primarily tree habitats, to the ground. Lucy had stone markings on her fossils, which showed the developing brain capacity of great apes because these markings were possibly made with stone tools in order to eat meat. Other fossils and turtle eggs were found near her fossils. Fossil evidence shows that she was a part of a social group, just like chimps. Her fossils are smaller than those of males, indicating that men were larger and of greater power than females. She might have lived in a social group dominated by one male. 

Scientists have debated on how and why humans have one long #2 chromosomes but they other great apes have two short #2 chromosomes. The two hypotheses are either, the common ancestor to great apes had only one long chromosome, and when all the other apes, except humans split, they split to form two separate ones. The other, more commonly accepted hypothesis is that great ape's common ancestor had two short chromosomes for chromosome 2, 2a and 2b. Through speciation of humans, their second chromosome fused into one long chromosome.    

(Human: top/ orangutan: bottom)