great ape
nounDefinition of great ape
: any of several large primates including the orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, and bonobo that are either placed in the same family (Hominidae) as humans or are grouped in a separate family (Pongidae)
Examples of great ape in a Sentence
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Similarly, keepers were forced to shoot a western lowland gorilla named Harambe at the Cincinnati Zoo in 2016 to protect a young child that had fallen into the great ape’s enclosure. — Jason Bittel, National Geographic, "How to be safe while visiting a zoo or other wildlife facility," 14 May 2019 One day in 2010, while waiting for an experiment to be set up at a great ape research center in Des Moines, Iowa, Gray began idly tapping her hand on the side of a glass enclosure. — Quanta Magazine, "The Beasts That Keep the Beat," 22 Mar. 2016 As the largest great ape sanctuary in the world, our costs are practically endless. — Kelli Bender, PEOPLE.com, "School for Orphaned Baby Orangutans Helps the Young Primates Grow Up and Graduate to the Wild," 1 Aug. 2019 More studies need to be done to see whether such short-term interactions, like sharing a video, strengthen great ape relationships in the long run, the team notes. — Katie Camero, Science | AAAS, "Chimpanzees grow closer when they watch a movie together," 16 July 2019 The teeth were compared with those of modern great apes. — Ashley Strickland, CNN, "Early humans breastfed their young for a year, study says," 15 July 2019 Previously, the only animals who’d passed the test were great apes, bottlenose dolphins, European magpies, and one Asian elephant (and even some of those results were disputed). — Sigal Samuel, Vox, "Breakups really suck, even if you’re a fish," 20 July 2019 In the chimpanzee, there is reason to speculate that over-specialization has not led to an evolutionary dead end, as may be the case with the other great apes. — National Geographic, "Jane Goodall’s original tale of chimpanzees still astonishes today," 17 Apr. 2019 About 8 million to 12 million years ago, the ancestor of great apes, including humans, underwent a dramatic genetic change. — Quanta Magazine, "A Missing Genetic Link in Human Evolution," 2 Jan. 2014These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'great ape.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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