Carnivorous ape

Y carnivorous ape
Difficulty	8
Attacks	Claw 1d4 physical, claw 1d4 physical, bearhug 1d8 physical

Y carnivorous ape
Difficulty	8
Attacks	Claw 1d4 physical, claw 1d4 physical, bearhug 1d8 physical
Base level	6
Base experience	76
Speed	12
Base AC	6
Base MR	0
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	1 (Very rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	1250
Nutritional value	550
Size	Large
Resistances	None
Resistances conveyed	None
A carnivorous ape: has a head, a couple of arms, and a torso. is an animal. is carnivorous. is normally generated hostile. is strong. can be seen through infravision.
Reference	NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 2402

A carnivorous ape, Y, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The carnivorous ape is a strong apelike creature that is the more ferocious cousin of the ape, and per its name it is an obligate carnivore. Carnivorous apes can be seen via infravision.

A carnivorous ape has two claw attacks along with the ability to bearhug targets and inflict physical damage through repeated crushing.

Generation

Randomly-generated carnivorous apes are always created as hostile.

Hostile carnivorous apes can be created by the summon nasties monster spell.

Carnivorous apes appear among the random Y that are part of the second quest monster class for Healers and make up ⁶⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Healer quest.

Strategy

Carnivorous apes have the same base speed of 12 as the hero does, and are a significant melee-range threat in the early game like the owlbear: their hug attack can crush a character's HP and leave them vulnerable to other nearby monsters. Fortunately, carnivorous apes have no MR score and an unimpressive 6 AC, and they are very vulnerable to wands, spellcasting and scaring tools.

History

The carnivorous ape first appears in NetHack 3.0.0, which introduces the apelike creatures.

Origin

The ape is a clade of Old World simians that are native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia—in prehistory, they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and Europe. In traditional and non-scientific use, the term "ape" can include tailless primates, making it distinct from the scientific taxon of ape, i.e. the superfamily Hominoidea. There are two extant branches of Hominoidea: the gibbons or lesser apes (Hylobatidae), and the hominids or great apes (Hominoidae). Apes other than gorillas and humans are agile tree-climbers and eat a variety of plant and animal foods, with the majority of their diet being herbivorous. There are several primate species that do partake in eating other animals, whether they consist of insects and other invertebrates, small vertebrates such as birds, or even simply eggs such as those of the black caiman. Very few of those species are exclusively or even predominantly carnivorous, and the more carnivorous primates are typically much smaller than gorillas and other plant- and fruit-eaters.

The most well-studied meat-eating primates are baboons, capuchins and chimpanzees: chimps in particular are known to consume around 45 different species of animals (including other monkeys such as red colobus monkeys), and take part in some of the most sophisticated behaviors around hunting and meat-sharing. The similarly-sized bonobos are close relatives of the chimpanzee and consume 16 different prey species in comparison. Various tarsier species are also notable for their exclusively-insectivorous diets, while marmosets and tamarins often consume frogs and small lizards.

As a monster, the carnivorous ape is most directly derived from Dungeons & Dragons, where it debuts in the 1st Edition Monster Manual. Carnivorous apes are portrayed as larger and stronger relatives of the more peaceful gorilla, with fairly high intelligence and cunning as well as keen senses that make them hard to surprise. Carnivorous apes live in similar family group structures to real-life primates. Early Monster Manual entries depict carnivorous apes with a preference for human flesh, with later depictions hewing somewhat closer to the diet of real-life primates: rodents, small reptiles and fish, which the large primates supplement with meat from their preferred prey of antelopes, buffalo, deer, and horses. Though carnivorous apes are persistent and cunning hunters that use their clawed hands and bites to restrain and rend targets apart, they typically only kill for food or to protect their families; man-eating carnivorous apes in particular are more likely to be ousted former leaders and other lone individuals, attacking out of rage or hunger.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, carnivorous apes can be tamed with bananas.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, the carnivorous ape is little different from NetHack, except that its second claw attack uses the off-hand for a hero polymorphed into a carnivorous ape.

Andromalius is a spirit whose binding ritual can use a carnivorous ape corpse as one of the two items placed in his seal, and using two other items in the binding ritual may generate a partly eaten carnivorous ape corpse as the third item that the hero receives if they successfully bind him.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, the carnivorous ape is the first quest monster for Zookeepers, and make up ⁹⁶⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters that are randomly generated on the Zookeeper quest.

Encyclopedia entry

The ape and carnivorous ape share the same encyclopedia entry:

The most highly evolved of all the primates, as shown by all their anatomical characters and particularly the development of the brain. Both arboreal and terrestrial, the apes have the forelimbs much better developed than the hind limbs. Tail entirely absent. Growth is slow and sexual maturity reached at quite an advanced age.

[ A Field Guide to the Larger Mammals of Africa by Dorst ]

Aldo the gorilla had a plan. It was a good plan. It was right. He knew it. He smacked his lips in anticipation as he thought of it. Yes. Apes should be strong. Apes should be masters. Apes should be proud. Apes should make the Earth shake when they walked. Apes should _rule_ the Earth.

[ Battle for the Planet of the Apes,
by David Gerrold ]

dNetHack

dNetHack and its variants add the following to the above entry:

Four-handed, tailless, mammal of the order of Primates, of the
sub-order of _Anthropoidea_, which of all mammals most closely
resembles man (both in appearance and in behaviour).

[ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]