From the Greek satyrs and minotaurs to the Egyptian sphinxes to the Hindu Vanaras, accounts of creatures having combined human and animal traits were imagined in many ancient folklores and mythologies, and the debate of their possible existence continues in the Modern Age. As nearly 99% of a chimpanzee’s DNA is the same as that of humans, and because the two species resemble one another and share many physical features and behavior, the “humanzee,” AKA “manpanzee” or” chuman,” is the most proposed crossbreed concept.

During the 1970s, a chimp named Oliver became the most touted creature promoted as the “missing link.”

Oliver

New Jersey trainers Frank and Janet Berger noticed Oliver’s irregularities shortly after acquiring him in 1970 (the year cited by most biographical and encyclopedia entries; some retrospective articles and local history features state the year as 1960, when he was still an infant.)

Oliver’s ears were pointed rather than rounded and set higher on his head, which was smaller than that of most chimpanzees. His jaw was not as prominent, while, in contrast, his nose was more protruding. Oliver’s rounder and flatter face was more humanlike and, also akin to many male humans, he was prematurely balding.

                   

Oliver On The Left In Each Photo

A Typical Chimpanzee On The Right

Oliver also moved atypically of his fellow primates. Most chimps generally knuckle-walk (on all four legs) because they can typically walk only short distances on two legs, generally doing so with their shoulders and back hunched and their knees bent.

Conversely, Oliver almost always walked bipedally (on only two legs) in an upright position with his shoulders and back erect and his knees locked

Upright Oliver

Oliver also enjoyed many human-like activities such as watching television while plopped on the couch and enjoying an occasional cigar.

Fellow chimps shunned Oliver. He was unbothered by being outcast by his peers as he preferred the company of people, particularly females, perhaps a little too much.

After reaching puberty, Oliver began kissing, hugging, and making sexual advances toward Janet and other women; on one occasion, he even put Janet’s head down, bent her over, and mounted her.

Overamarous Oliver became so overbearing that the Bergers sold him in 1975.

                                     

Oliver, Smoking With Daddy And (Affectionately) Hugging Mommy

Ownership of Oliver changed hands several times over the following fourteen years, with each handler reporting similar affections on the chimp’s part. His last private owner, Bill Rivers, said Oliver’s attractions had spread to monkeys, as he frequently kissed them.

In 1989, Oliver was purchased by the Buckshire Corporation, a Pennsylvania laboratory leasing animals for cosmetic and scientific testing, though he was never used in any experiments.

Oliver Is Sold Multiple Times

Because of his physical oddities and unique behavior, Oliver was suggested for years as a possible human-chimpanzee hybrid or a new chimpanzee subspecies. He was rumored to have a chromosome count of forty-seven, in between the forty-six possessed by humans and the forty-eight of chimpanzees. Genetic testing at the University of Chicago in 1996, however, showed he had the standard forty-eight. A separate study found that his baldness, ear shape, freckles, and cranial morphology were within the variability range exhibited by the common chimpanzee.

Additional genetic testing determined Oliver’s mitochondrial DNA closely matched that of the central chimpanzee subspecies in Central Africa, particularly prevalent in Gabon and the Republic of the Congo, from where he had been captured around 1960, when he was believed to have been about three-years-old. In that area, some people traditionally live near chimpanzees and some even keep them as household pets. As Oliver’s capture is not fully documented, some have theorized this is how he developed his humanlike tendencies.

Oliver Is An Odd Fellow, But He Is Not The Missing Link

Oliver was confirmed not to be a hybrid creature, but lingering questions remain about his exact origins. As his DNA had nearly, but not completely, matched that of a central African chimpanzee subspecies, some suggest the mutant chimp could have been from an additional and yet unknown race.

 

Oliver Remains An Enigma

In 1998, Oliver was moved to the Primarily Primates Inc. (PPI) near San Antonio, Texas, where he developed a boyfriend-girlfriend like relationship with a female chimpanzee named Raisin. The blind and arthritic Oliver died in his sleep on June 2, 2012, at approximately fifty-five-years-old.  His ashes were cremated and spread on the sanctuary grounds.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/91768423/oliver_the-chimp

Old Oliver Dies

Japanese television producer, showman, and event promoter Kō Yoshio, AKA Yoshio Kou, arranged Oliver’s three week visit to his country in 1976 and produced a documentary on the chimp entitled Man or Ape—The Mysterious Universal Man Oliver. A media frenzy erupted when nineteen-year-old Japanese actress Hiroko Tagawa offered, in the interests of scientific research, to have sexual intercourse with Oliver in a publicly televised event.

No monkey business occurred between woman and chimp. The proposed interspecies hookup was a publicity stunt.

Hiroko Tagawa

In the 1920s, Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanov attempted to create a human-primate hybrid by using human sperm to impregnate female chimpanzees. None of the artificial inseminations produced a pregnancy.

Ilya Ivanov

An urban legend holds that a humanzee was born during the 1920s at the original Yerkes Primate Center, now called the Emory National Primate Research Center, in Orange Park, Florida. A female chimpanzee was said to have given birth approximately eight months (full chimp pregnancy term) after being artificially inseminated with human semen from an unknown donor.  Several days afterward, the interspecies infant was said to have been euthanized and the decision was made to not make the story public.

The late State University of New York Psychology professor Gordon Gallup said one of his former professors confirmed the account. The research center denies any such birth occurred.

A Shenyang, China, lab is also rumored to have fertilized a chimpanzee with human sperm in 1967. The chimp was alleged to be three months pregnant when she died of neglect after cultural revolutionary rioters destroyed the laboratory.  This account, as well, cannot be proven.

A humanzee has not, at anywhere or anytime, been confirmed to have existed.

 

Two Different Artists’ Renderings Of How A Chimpanzee

Sources: 

• Austin Chronicle
• Fortean Times (Great Britain)
• Friends of Animals
• Houston Chronicle
• National Geographic
• San Antonio Express-News
• Science Channel