This Bonobo can start his own fires and cook his own food

The amazing Kanzi is a 35 year-old Bonobo, a cousin to the chimpanzee, that has developed skills far beyond that of his relatives.

Born into captivity, Kanzi was able to develop the skills of his human captors.  

Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh of the Ape Cognition and Conservation Initiative, where Kanzi now lives, said, “Kanzi makes fire because he wants to. He used to watch the film Quest For Fire when he was very young which was about early man struggling to control fire. He watched it spellbound over and over hundreds of times.”  When he's done, he pours water on the fire to put it out, because safety is important.

When he sets his fires, he roasts marshmallows and hamburgers, just like his humans.

Kanzi also understands 3,000 english words, with the ability to point to lexigrams, or symbols, of 500 words to communicate back to us.  When he was a baby, his mother was taught language but didn't pick it up the way he did.

What an amazingly brilliant creature!