How to Use great ape in a Sentence

great ape

noun
  • That brings to eight the number of great ape species alive today.
    — Karen Kaplan, latimes.com, 3 Nov. 2017
  • Safari Park has 11 of the great apes.
    — Karen Kucher, San Diego Union-Tribune, 21 Apr. 2026
  • Over the horizon, long term planning is not the strong suit of great apes like us.
    — Bruce Dorminey, Forbes.com, 25 Aug. 2025
  • What would turn the descendants of a wolf and a great ape into best friends?
    — Alison Gopnik, WSJ, 2 Mar. 2023
  • Disease ecologists warned that the virus might spread to the great apes.
    — Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Harper's Magazine, 25 May 2020
  • Goodall’s work opened the world’s eyes to our closest great ape relatives.
    — Katherine J. Wu, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Jan. 2020
  • The great ape’s immense strength is in full force as the man is unable to break free, and is pulled closer to the cage.
    — Lawrence Richard, Fox News, 8 June 2022
  • As of this week, these orangutans are being recognized as a distinct species of great ape.
    — Karen Kaplan, latimes.com, 3 Nov. 2017
  • Now, the same team has revealed another discovery — a new species of tiny great ape.
    — Irene Wright, Miami Herald, 10 June 2024
  • The western lowland gorilla, one of four subspecies of the great ape.
    — NBC News, 26 Jan. 2022
  • Modern humans and great apes may have been laughing for at least 15 million years.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 25 June 2026
  • Hominids are the group including all modern and extinct great apes.
    — Margherita Bassi, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 Mar. 2025
  • The great ape’s immense strength is showcased as the man is unable to break free and keeps getting pulled closer to the cage.
    — Scott Gleeson, USA TODAY, 8 June 2022
  • By comparison, a newborn human brain is roughly the size of an adult great ape’s brain.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 13 Nov. 2024
  • As the largest great ape sanctuary in the world, our costs are practically endless.
    — Kelli Bender, PEOPLE.com, 1 Aug. 2019
  • Most of the great apes in the study lived in Gabon and the Republic of the Congo.
    — Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, 26 Apr. 2018
  • The great apes don’t seem to vocally, but might use a gestural equivalent.
    — Ed Yong, The Atlantic, 26 June 2023
  • Kühl’s local observations turn out to apply across most of Africa’s great ape range.
    — Rachel Nuwer, Scientific American, 17 Nov. 2021
  • In some key ways, the structure of an Australopithecine’s brain looked a lot like that of modern great apes.
    — Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 14 May 2018
  • The great ape appeared to be trying to help the warden, who was standing in a muddy, flowing river.
    — Emma Reynolds, CNN, 7 Feb. 2020
  • Powell also points to a lack of good data on great apes, like gorillas and orangutans, in the data set.
    — Cathleen O'Grady, Ars Technica, 23 Aug. 2018
  • African grey parrots — roughly the size of a pigeon, with sleek grey bodies and crimson tail feathers — are the great apes of the bird world.
    — Rene Ebersole, Rolling Stone, 18 Nov. 2025
  • Now, a new study suggests that such make-believe play is not a uniquely human talent, but a skill that great apes also possess.
    — Amarachi Orie, CNN Money, 9 Feb. 2026
  • All great apes construct nests to some degree, and studies show that orangutans sleep deeper and longer than non-nest-building primates.
    — Sierra Bouchér, Scientific American, 6 June 2024
  • When reforestation is complete, guests could conceivably glimpse these great apes from their balconies.
    — Noo Saro-Wiwa, Condé Nast Traveler, 13 Oct. 2023
  • Surprising new research has revealed that the colorful great apes suckle for up to eight years, and in some cases longer.
    — National Geographic, 17 May 2017
  • Human babies have heads almost exactly as big as the mother’s pelvis—a squeeze by any standard and a tighter fit than other great apes.
    — Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 29 June 2026
  • While monkeys were unable to think too far into the future, great apes like chimps, bonobos and orangutans showed the ability to plan.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 14 July 2017
  • Read Next World Tiny great ape — from 11 million years ago — found in Germany clay pit.
    — Irene Wright, Miami Herald, 12 June 2024
  • This structure has also remained with all living great apes over all that time, since all great apes show the same underlying speech pattern.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 25 June 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'great ape.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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