How can a baby chimp become smarter than a human child? All they need is love, say researchers

Later in life, we're the ones who have the edge.



But in the first nine months after birth, chimpanzees can be smarter than humans, scientists claim.



Orphaned chimpanzees given special 'mothering' by humans did better in tests of cognitive ability than the average human baby.



I'm the smartest: Chimps beat human babies

Chimps are the closest living relatives to humans - we both evolved from a common ape ancestor around five million years ago and share around 94 per cent of DNA.



Professor Kim Bard, of the University of Portsmouth, gave 46 baby chimps the same cognitive tests given to human babies, measuring how they reacted to emotional stimuli such as sound and objects.



She found that chimpanzees who were put on a special course of emotionally-based, loving care from zookeepers were more cognitively advanced than human children of the same age given loving care by their natural parents.



But humans took over after the age of nine months.





The study found chimps given loving care from zookeepers outperformed human children of the same age

Professor Bard also found that the chimps, which were cared for in the Great Ape Nursery at the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre in Atlanta, in the U.S., were more advanced and happier than other chimps given standard types of care.



She explained: ' Those given responsive care were less easily stressed, less often attached to "comfort blankets', had healthier relationships with their caregivers and were less likely to develop stereotypic rocking.'



Professor Bard said it proved that young chimpanzees, like humans, need emotional support as well as physical support to become ' welladjusted' adults.





Chimpanzees are humans' closest relatives. They are native to central and west Africa

And she added that her study acted as a 'stark warning' that looking after just an infant's physical needs was likely to result in a child who was maladjusted, unhappy and under-achieving. She said: 'The attachment system of infant chimpanzees appears surprisingly similar to that found in human infants.



'Early experiences, either of warm, responsive care-giving or of extreme deprivation, have a dramatic impact on emotional and cognitive outcomes in both chimpanzees and humans.'



It is not the first research to demonstrate remarkable levels of intelligence in chimpanzees. One study found they could outperform some university students at remembering lists of numbers. Chimps make tools to get food and they hunt as sophisticated packs. They can also learn to understand symbols and show sadness when a relative dies.

They may look like they are just apeing around, but the baby chimps in your local zoo may be more advanced than human children.

Researchers have found that orphaned chimpanzees given special 'mothering' by humans do better in tests of cognitive ability than the average homo sapiens child - at least until they are nine months old.

Chimps are the closest living relatives to humans - we both evolved from a common ape ancestor around five million years ago - and in most ways humans are much more highly developed.