Chimpanzees helped to make PG Tips tea famous with their iconic TV ads in the 1970s. But what happened to these animals afterwards? Our new study , using techniques previously used only on human remains, reveals the fascinating life story of Choppers, a celebrity chimpanzee, also known as Ada Lott from the PG Tips ads.
Authors
- Stuart Black
Associate Professor, Department of Archaeology, University of Reading
- David Cooper
Researcher in Ecology and Evolution, National Museums Scotland
- Juliette Waterman
Postdoctoral Researcher in Isotope zooarchaeology, University of Reading
Zoos have transformed over the last century. They once focused on entertainment, but in the UK zoos now have a greater emphasis on education, conservation, research and welfare. And our new study, led by experts at National Museums Scotland, shows how these changes are written on Choppers' body.
Choppers died aged 46 in 2016, which is close to the average age for a wild or captive chimpanzee. Following her death, Choppers was donated to the National Museums of Scotland, which enabled an analytical investigation into her life through her remains. Researchers from across the UK created the most comprehensive osteobiography of a zoo animal by bringing together archival, chemical and metric analyses.
Osteobiography involves the analysis of bones and other tissue. It is more commonly used in archaeology to reconstruct the life stories of ancient human subjects, such as Richard III , identifying where and how they lived in remarkable detail.
As a celebrity, Choppers' life has been extensively documented. This combination of archival material and osteobiographical analysis provides one of the most complete assessments of the life of an animal in zoo care.
The findings of our study paint a rich picture of Choppers' key life events, including evidence of injuries sustained when she was poached from the wild at just six weeks old. Choppers had a broken right arm, which seemed to have healed badly. Her lower arm bones were bowed and much shorter than her left side. She seems to have not been able to bear much weight on this arm, which likely contributed to joint disease here and elsewhere in her skeleton.
It is also likely that many, if not all, of her social group were killed in her capture. The physical trauma would impact her throughout her life, impairing her movement and exacerbating degenerative issues associated with old age.
Analysis of Choppers' tooth enamel indicates a geographical and dietary shift between the ages of three and four, coinciding with her relocation to the UK from Sierra Leone. In the following three years she played the grandmother character in the PG Tips adverts, which ran in the UK throughout the 70s and 80s and featured a family of tea drinking chimps.
The long-running ads helped PG Tips become the market leader of tea in Britain for 35 years. Her performance career was short, ending before the onset of puberty, and Choppers probably retired at around the age of six or seven . In part this is due to behavioural change as adult chimpanzees become less predictable, but also as a result of human perceptions of the cuteness of adult chimpanzees compared to infants.
Choppers transitioned from a relatively active life with high levels of direct interaction with humans, to a sedentary life with two companion chimpanzees, Noddy and Brooke, who were also retired from the entertainment industry. She was cared for by Twycross Zoo in Leicestershire for the rest of her life.
Choppers' upper jaw was significantly elongated compared with wild chimpanzees, reflecting an early diet of sugary soft fruit, but also of her performance diet that mimicked that of humans. The PG Tips advertisements followed on from a longstanding trope in the mid-20th century of chimpanzees participating in tea parties, eating cake, drinking "tea" and apeing human behaviour. The chimpanzees drank fruit juice or milk rather than tea during tea parties and advertisements.
In recent years there has been a shift towards tougher, less sugary vegetables in the diets of zoo primates, which is leading to improvements in their health and behaviour.
Later in life, Choppers was housed for a time with another chimpanzee, Bobby. Together they had one daughter, Holly.
Across the world today, there is considerable variation in zoo regulation, management and welfare. Despite accreditation of zoos and improved regulation, the illegal trafficking of chimpanzees and other primates into private collections and disreputable zoos continues. Choppers' story is testament to the many thousands of chimpanzees that were (and still are) forcibly extracted from the wild for zoos, circuses, laboratories and private collections.
Choppers was not an unusual chimpanzee, but her story is an individual one, which resonates with human attitudes towards wildlife, zoos, entertainment, welfare and quality of life.
Stuart Black receives funding from The Wellcome Trust, UKRI and other research councils.
David Cooper has received funding from The Wellcome Trust.
Juliette Waterman received funding from the Wellcome Trust while this research was carried out.
