Robinson Jeffers, from "Original Sin," 1946: The man-brained and man-handed ground-ape, physically The most repulsive of all hot-blooded animals Up to that t

Robinson Jeffers, from "Original Sin," 1946: The man-brained and man-handed ground-ape, physically The most repulsive of all hot-blooded animals Up to that time of the world: they had dug a pitfall And caught a mammoth, but how could their sticks and stones Reach the life in that hide? They danced around the pit, shrieking With ape excitement, flinging sharp flints in vain, and the stench of their bodies Stained the white air of dawn; but presently one of them Remembered the yellow dancer, wood-eating fire That guards the cave-mouth: he ran and fetched him, and others Gathered sticks at the wood’s edge; they made a blaze And pushed it into the pit, and they fed it high, around the mired sides Of their huge prey. They watched the long hairy trunk Waver over the stifled trumpeting pain, And they were happy... http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176425 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176425 While it's hard to fault Jeffers in this judgment, I would nonetheless insist that the chimpanzee is at least #2. Even gorillas are just plain vile. Last month I took the kids to see the gorillas at the SF Zoo, and one female took deadly aim at the audience with a pile of poo - missing, but barely. Perhaps the entire primate clade is just a mistake.