Dr Ely also concluded that, seeming to take the evidence he had to amazing lengths ,

Quote
” I might add that, from what I have seen so far, those who really want to believe in highly intelligent, bipedal African man-apes (“Apamandi” and whatnot) who continue to elude field primatologists, the bushmeat market etc, will not be dissuaded by any amount of evidence. The persistence of these deeply-rooted beliefs, as psychological facts, are an interesting phenomenon in their own right. ”

Would Dr Ely recommend psychiatric treatment for us unfortunates?

Of course the Bononbo almost fills niche of manapes and this might be the direction to go in understanding an Oliver if the situation ever arises again.

Unfortunately Oliver died recently and his remains were cremated and the ashes spread around the Primary Primate Centre where he last lived. My entreaties and pleading for the centre to keep samples from Olivers body for further tests now or in the future were denied as the Centre considered Oliver had had enough of testing ! I think Oliver would have been more respected by doing so than not and he was clearly misdiagnosed as a simple chimp and thus probably missed much he should have received.

It would be nice if some samples of Oliver had been kept but seems rather unlikely now and I hope he was not the last of his kind. Bless him.

With modern DNA analysis