The Organ Ape, also known as Cassidum Aeipan, was discovered by biologists Alan Alastor Faren and Elizabeth Dorothy Wrinkenwald in 1953 on a previously undiscovered island, now named Farenwald, located between Australia and Antarctica. News of the discovery was kept hidden by multiple governments until the leak in 2015 where documents were released online to the public. The Organ ape received its name after a dissection was performed and it was discovered that Organ Apes develop more than one set of organs in their body.
Habitat and Diet[]
On the island, there are three prominent groups of Organ apes, each lead by a female ape rather than a male ape. Each group has approximately 10 to 15 members. Organ apes are omnivores, eating both mammals, insects, and vegetation. Upon observing them, Wrinkenwald noted that “their eating habits remind us of goats who simply eat everything and anything.” Wrikenwald also noted that Organ Apes were capable of working together to hunt down small prey that existed on the island, such as rabbits, foxes, and birds.
Organ Apes live in the forest and prefer to spend their time resting under trees. At nighttime, some apes prefer to sleep in the trees while others choose to sleep on the ground. Regardless of whether the apes sleep in the trees or on the ground, both make their beds out of vegetation from the surrounding area. The preferred bedding material is soft grass, leaves, and ferns. Older, less agile apes are more prone to sleeping on the ground than in the trees.
Organ apes eat mammals, insects and vegetation. The apes will sometimes work together to hunt small mammals. Apes will eat almost all vegetation there is on the island, preferring some of the wild berries, like black berries, found on the island over dandelions and tree roots. Organ apes do avoid some wild berries like the ivy berries found on ivy plants. Organ apes also avoid eating ivy plants in general, steering clear of the areas that contain ivy plants. Further tests were conducted by Faren and Wrinkenwald and it was discovered that ivy plants and berries were lethal to Organ apes.
Characteristics and Gender[]
Using bones of deceased apes, scientists were able to determine that Organ apes live to about 80 to 90 years old on average. Apes reach maturity at around 18 to 20 years old. Similar to humans, Organ apes have contracted diseases similar to humans such as malaria, small pox, etc. and have had members of their groups die from it.
Depending on gender, Organ apes are approximately 5-6 feet in height and 3-4 feet in width. Organ apes come in a variety of colors, with 2 of the three groups on the island having at least 1 albino member. Other hair colors consist of blond, black, red and brown. Eye colors range from brown, red, or blue. Organ apes do have shaggy hair that covers a majority of their body.
Organ Apes have about 2-3 sets of organs in their body that include a heart, lungs, brain, kidneys, liver, intestines, stomach, etc. After further testing, scientists were able to determine that the DNA Organ Apes is 99% similar to human beings. Tests are still underway in hopes of discovering a way to transplant organs from organ apes to humans who need organ transplants.
Females weigh in at about 300 to 450 pounds at maturity and are about 5 feet in height, 3 feet in width. Males weigh about 500-600 pounds at maturity and are about 6 feet in height, 4 feet in width. The male to female ratio is about 1:3, making it very hard for apes to reproduce and increase their population. Newborn organ apes are also cared for by their mothers for the first 5 years of their lives, so females only give mate and give birth every 5 years. Each female has only about 50 years of reproduction before they are unable to reproduce.
Group Behavior[]
Each group has about 10 to 15 members and obey a single Matriarch. The Matriarch is one female who will lead the entire group her entire lifetime. Once she dies, a new female will be selected. It was observed by Faren that a new Matriarch is selected based on the ability to find food and to lead the group to food the fastest.
Faren also noted that while the apes consisted of different colors, there was little discrimination among them. He stated, “It is possible that because they had no natural predators on the island, that they did not care about blending in or variation. In the wild, some young are abandoned due to the physical differences or are hunted first as they are more easily spotted”.
However, the group does have a loose social order. At the top is the Matriarch, then two apes who act as enforcers of the Matriarch’s will. One of the three groups had two male enforcers while another group had two females and the last group had one male and one female enforcer. Following the two enforcers, the rest of the group has a very loose ranking. The only time that apes would get aggressive against each other is when they are fighting for high-protein foods, such as meat, or over mating rights due to the lack of females.
The apes communicate to each other using a series of grunts and snorts, often resorting to hands movements and gestures when frantic. A documentary called “Nature of the Organ Ape” documented the communication between apes. The group is in constant communication with each other through a series of whistles and grunts. Occasionally, the Matriarch of the group will let out a whistle-grunt and the apes will respond with a grunt in return. The apes rarely leave the group for long, usually staying within the area of the group. When a member of the group senses danger, it alerts the group to the potential danger in three stages. In the first stage, the ape will pound the ground and let out three grunts before looking towards the direction of the danger. In the second stage, the ape will begin to pound the members around it before grunting non-stop and would then look towards the area of danger. In the third stage, the ape will run in circles around the group, grunt non-stop, and will run in the direction of safety. As there are no natural predators, most apes only call danger to heavy flooding, landslides, etc.
Mating[]
Usually 3-4 male Organ apes will fight over the female in estrus. Of the three to four males, two will emerge as the winners and will be allowed to court the female. Males will present offerings to the female and will attempt to prove his strength and superiority. Offerings consist of high protein foods, such as meat, edible plants, and material. The males have also been known to walk around the female in estrus and to jump from branch to branch to show off of his strength. After three days of courting, the female will present the male of her choice with a food offering, such as berries, and the two will mate.
Birthing[]
Females tend to have only one child at a time, with only three documented cases of twins. However, with the case of twins, usually the weaker of the two is abandoned unless the child is a female. If the weaker child is a female, both children are kept. This was the case in a 1985 journal entry from Biologist Richard Jenkins of Fedein University of Washington where the female child was clearly the weaker of the two, but was kept. The female survived but required more of the resources and time of the mother. The mother was observed holding the female more than the male and feeding the female more. Jenkins also noted in his notebook that it was possible that the apes could tell a female from a male as when Jenkins approached them with his colleague and identical twin, Colleen Jenkins, the apes gathered around Colleen instead despite the fact that he had food in hand. Using this example, Jenkins connected that “apes knew of the importance of female apes to their groups and would do anything to keep the females alive”.
Controversy[]
It was discovered that multiple world governments were aware of the existence of Organ Apes thanks to Faren and Wrinkenwald, however, this news was not released to the public until a leak due to a hacker group named Destruction in 2015. Destruction then released documents regarding the Organ Apes, garnering the attention of multiple countries.
Animal groups have spoken out against using Organ Apes as testing materials for human transplants. Groups such as GAR (Give Animals Rights) and AHF (Animals Have Feelings) have spoken out against science centers, protesting against the use of the organ apes that only exist on Farenwald and number at approximately 40 apes total.
(Jennifer Van)