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Kanzi (October 28, 1980 – March 18, 2025), also known by the lexigram (from the character ), was a male bonobo who was the subject of several studies on great ape language. According to Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a primatologist who has studied the bonobo since the 1990s, Kanzi exhibited advanced linguistic aptitude. (1994). 9780471585916, Wiley. ISBN 9780471585916
In 1985, Kanzi was moved to the Language Research Center at Georgia State University. He was later relocated, along with his sister, Panbanisha, to the Great Ape Trust, in Des Moines, Iowa. The ill-fated facility, founded in 2004 by local businessman, Ted Townsend, closed after losing funding, experiencing allegations of neglect, and a flood.
In 2013, the Ape Cognition and Conservation Initiative (ACCI), under the direction of Jared Taglialatela, a professor at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and Bill Hopkins, a professor at Georgia State University, took over the facility.
When the ACCI took over Kanzi's care in 2013, he was severely obese due to mismanagement of his diet and activity. His new caretakers changed Kanzi's diet to a more species-appropriate one and increased his opportunities for physical activity. Kanzi subsequently lost over seventy-five pounds.
As an infant, Kanzi accompanied Matata to sessions where Matata was taught language through keyboard , but showed little interest in the lessons. It was a great surprise to researchers then when one day, while Matata was away, Kanzi began competently using the lexigrams, becoming not only the first observed ape to have learned aspects of language naturalistically rather than through direct training, but also the first observed bonobo to appear to use some elements of language at all. Within a short time, Kanzi had mastered the ten words that researchers had been struggling to teach his adoptive mother, and eventually learned a further 348, which he could also combine for new meaning. When he heard a spoken word (through headphones, to filter out nonverbal clues), he pointed to the correct lexigram. He was able to initiate communication using the lexigrams. Sue Savage Rumbaugh, in 2006, claimed Kanzi understood about 3,000 spoken words.
According to a Discover article, Kanzi was an accomplished tool user.
Kanzi's adoptive mother, Matata, was believed to be in her mid-to-late 40s when she died in June 2014. In the matriarchy of bonobos, a male's position is primarily determined by the position of the females he is related to. Matata was the group's chief leader so his status as the highest ranking male was established by being adopted as her "son". According to Smithsonian Magazine, Kanzi "has the mien of an aging patriarch – he's balding and paunchy with serious, deep-set eyes."Raffaele, Smithsonian, November 2006. This description is confirmed by a full-page color photograph of Kanzi in the March 2008 National Geographic, and a full-page black-and-white photograph in Time magazine. Time, August 16, 2010.
Kanzi died on March 18, 2025, at the age of 44. His death was announced the following day, on March 19, by the Ape Initiative where Kanzi lived in Des Moines.
Another study, designed and carried out by archaeologists Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth, aimed to compare Kanzi's cognitive and mechanical abilities with those of early human ancestors who made and used Early Stone Age tools (probably Homo habilis), such as Oldowan Stone tool and cores (a core is the rock from which a flake has been removed). In this study, Schick and Toth showed Kanzi how to flake stone, producing a sharp edge that could be used to cut through a rope in order to gain access to a food reward. After modeling the flaking behavior on a variety of occasions, the researchers set up each experiment by placing a food reward inside a box with a transparent lid which was held closed by a length of rope. Kanzi would then be led into an enclosure where the box was located and provided with the stones needed for flaking (known as chert or flint). Over the course of this multi-year study, Kanzi not only learned how to flake, he also developed his own method by throwing the cobbles onto hard surfaces to make a flake, as opposed to the hand-held percussion method that was modeled for him. With the many sharp flakes he produced, Kanzi was able to cut through the rope to gain access to the food reward. However, the flakes he produced and used were more crude than those produced by Early Stone Age humans.Schick, K. D., Toth, N., Garufi, G., Savage-Rumbaugh, E. S., Rumbaugh, D., & Sevcik, R. (1999). Continuing Investigations into the Stone Tool-making and Tool-using Capabilities of a Bonobo (Pan paniscus). Journal of Archaeological Science, 26(7), 821–832.
A similar study on the flaking abilities of chimpanzees failed to recreate the findings with Kanzi. The authors suggest that the discrepancies in findings are due to the differences in rearing backgrounds of the subjects. Whilst Kanzi spent a significant portion of his life around humans and being trained by them (leading to a high level of enculturation), the chimpanzees in the more recent study were not trained in or shown how to make or use flakes (or in any other human behaviours). This may explain why Kanzi was able to develop flaking after observing humans, and the chimpanzees in the recent study were not.
In a study by Johns Hopkins University's Social and Cognitive Origins researchers published in February 2025 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research group "worked with three male bonobos, Nyota, 25; Kanzi, 43; and Teco, 13". If the researcher interacting with the bonobo Kanzi asked "Where's the grape?" but had clearly seen the treat being hidden, the bonobo "would usually sit still and wait for the treat" during the 10-second wait after the question; "but when the hadn't seen where the treat was hidden, the ape would quickly point to the right cup—sometimes quite demonstratively". The study is "the first such to replicate in a controlled setting similar findings from the wild". Johns Hopkins assistant professor Chris Krupenye noted "The results also suggest apes can simultaneously hold two conflicting world views in their mind. They know exactly where the food is, and at the same time, they know that their partner's view of the same situation is missing that information" and that "this so-called theory of mind supports many of the capacities" behind advanced human capabilities and social organization and "demonstrates the rich mental foundations that humans and other apes share".
Kanzi could not vocalize in a manner that is comprehensible to most humans, as bonobos' vocal tracts are different from the vocal tracts of humans, making them incapable of reproducing most of the vocal sounds humans can make. Nonetheless, it was noticed that every time Kanzi communicated with humans with specially designed graphic symbols, he also produced some vocalization. Later, it was discovered that Kanzi was producing the articulatory equivalent of the symbols he was indicating, although in a very high pitch and with distortions.Greenspan, S. I., and S. G. Shanjer. 2004. The first idea: How symbols, language and intelligence evolved from our primate ancestors to modern humans. Da Capo Press.
According to the research of Savage-Rumbaugh, Kanzi "can understand individual spoken words and how they are used in novel sentences". For example, the researcher asked Kanzi to go get the carrot in the microwave, Kanzi went directly to the microwave and completely ignored the carrot that was closer to him, but not in the microwave."Chimp matches 2-year-old Cognitive capabilities more like humans' than experts believed." Globe & Mail Toronto,, April 6, 1991, A11. Opposing Viewpoints in Context (accessed December 1, 2018). http://link.galegroup.com.librarynt.occc.edu/apps/doc/A164263203/OVIC?u=okccc_main&sid=OVIC&xid=ca8f20a0 . In another example, a researcher gave the task, "feed your ball some tomato". Alia, a human 2-year-old, did not know what to do, but Kanzi immediately used a spongy toy Halloween pumpkin as a ball and began to feed the toy.Wise, Steven M. "Why Animals Deserve Legal Status." Higher Education, February 2, 2001, B13. Quoted in "Animals Deserve Legal Rights." Animal Rights, edited by Shasta Gaughen. Contemporary Issues Companion. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints in Context (accessed December 1, 2018). http://link.galegroup.com.librarynt.occc.edu/apps/doc/EJ3010344210/OVIC?u=okccc_main&sid=OVIC&xid=e0a8a0ce .
Kanzi also showed no ability in the use of , nor could he make use of morphology, such as indicating the plural form of a noun, or syntax. As with other great ape language experiments, Kanzi was not considered by some linguists to display a capacity for language.
Other animals used in language studies:
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