---
title: "Chimpanzee · Animals and other organisms · Entities · Simulation Hypothesis"
url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/entities/chimp
description: "One of our two closest living relatives (along with the bonobo). It passes the mirror test."
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)"
---

[Entities](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/entities) › Animals and other organisms › Mammals

# Chimpanzee

Pan troglodytes

One of our two closest living relatives (along with the bonobo). It passes the mirror test.

Neurons

about 28 billion (predicted from scaling rules, not counted) estimate  · whole brain 

Herculano-Houzel S, Kaas JH (2011), prediction from primate scaling rules.

In the cerebral cortex (or bird pallium)

3.7 billion in one hemisphere (measured)

Collins CE et al. (2016). Cortical cell and neuron density estimates in one chimpanzee hemisphere. PNAS 113:740-745\. doi:10.1073/pnas.1524208113.

## Evidence

* Chimpanzees pass the mirror mark test.  
Gallup GG Jr (1970) Chimpanzees: self-recognition. Science 167(3914):86-87\. doi:10.1126/science.167.3914.86.

The [New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness](https://sites.google.com/nyu.edu/nydeclaration/declaration) (2024) finds strong scientific support for conscious experience in mammals and birds.

In the trees

[Make peace after a fight · Ethics](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/trees/ethics?n=e-chimp-repair)[Share, and be owed · Ethics](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/trees/ethics?n=e-foodshare)

Assess it against the published criteria