What better place to observe animal behavior than a zoo? I was recently reminded of a bizarre incident at a zoo that involved two primates. You can decide for yourself which one should have been behind bars.

I was a student at Michigan State University when I went with a group of friends to the Lansing Zoo. The star attraction was a chimpanzee that lived in an old-fashioned jail-cell cage and smoked cigarettes. How times have changed.

The bars of the cage were wide enough apart for the chimp to stick an arm through. When offered a lit cigarette, this well-trained ape would reach out and gently take it from the person’s hand. He would then retire to a bench on the far side of the cage, lounge against the wall and languidly puff away, occasionally flashing a big grin at his audience. He used the scooped-out half of an orange as an ashtray, holding it in one hand and tapping the cigarette on the edge. He could blow the most impressive smoke rings within smoke rings I have ever seen, and he would glance at us now and then to make sure he was being appreciated. Someone offered him a book of matches and an unlit cigarette; none of us were surprised when he lit up.

The bizarre incident occurred while a dozen of us were standing around enjoying the chimp’s smoking act—he blew smoke out his mouth and inhaled it through his nose then curled his lip so the lit cigarette was completely inside his mouth. Most of us smoked back then and could do these tricks ourselves to one degree or another. His act humbled all of us. And you better believe no one was lighting up during this performance. As the cage’s inhabitant lounged and grinned and smoked, the similarities between humans and chimpanzees seemed far greater than the documented 97 percent genetic overlap.

While we were watching the performance, a smartly dressed man next to me demonstrated to everyone present his stunning moral bankruptcy. He held out a lit cigarette to the chimp. When he reached out to get the smoke, the man flipped the cigarette around and jabbed the burning end onto the chimp’s palm. Then, to be sure he would win the award for Most Reviled Human at the Zoo, he began to laugh. The chimp wisely stuck the burnt hand in his water bowl.

I felt a bit better about the human race when I heard the crowd’s collective gasp and saw everyone staring in horror. Our unspoken thought: why on earth did you do that, you monster? But no one had a chance to express their outrage. Before anyone could speak, the chimp jumped up, reached out a long, powerful arm, grabbed the man’s tie by the knot and jerked Mr. Laughing Hyena face-first into the iron bars. The man was understandably terrified. The rest of us stood in shocked silence. I feel certain that eventually someone would have intervened and at least tried to pull the man away from the chimp. But his unprovoked attack on the great ape had not inspired the crowd to rush to his rescue.

Then, almost as fast as the chimp had body slammed the man into the bars, he pushed him away with his other arm and simultaneously let go of the tie. The man stumbled backward and fell to the floor in front of the gibbons (the caged ones), who looked down curiously. The chimp began jumping up and down and cackling like, well, like a chimpanzee, all the while pointing at Mr. Disgraced-in-the-Ape-House, who quickly got up off the floor and left. The uncaged humans stood in awed amazement at the chimp’s revenge, while the caged gibbons held onto the bars and slowly turned their heads to watch the solitary primate retreat. The chimp continued to roll on the floor, laughing.

A zoo is an excellent place to observe animal behavior.         

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