Book explores emotional parallels

‘Mama’s Last Hug’ by biologist shows links between humans, apes.

For more than 25 years, biologist Frans de Waal has been studying primates at Emory University, where he is director of the Living Links Center for the Advanced Study of Ape and Human Evolution. But all that comes to an end this summer when he retires.

In addition to spending some time traveling with his wife, the 70-year-old Tucker resident will continue to teach part time at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and guest lecture on his topic of expertise: the fascinating parallels between humans and apes.

Meanwhile, he is promoting his latest book, “Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves.” It was inspired by a 2016 video that shows the author’s colleague, Jan van Hooff, paying a deathbed visit to Mama, a 58-year-old chimpanzee, at Burgers’ Zoo in the Netherlands. Mama and van Hooff had worked together for four decades, but they had not seen each other for several years. The video captures the listless chimp lying motionless in the fetal position on a bed of hay. When van Hooff appears in the frame, she is slow to respond, but when she does, she flashes a wide smile and issues gentle coos before reaching out a hand to stroke van Hooff ’s hair and throw her long arm around his neck for an embrace.

The emotional exchange touched a chord in viewers. The original video has been viewed more than 10 million times to date. And it prompted de Waal to use it as a jumping-off point for his book about how animals express emotions and how similar they are to our own.

Your book is about much more than the viral video of Mama on her deathbed. Why did you choose that title?

When the video came out, many people said they were extremely moved, which I fully understand. I was very moved by it. But also, many people said they were surprised by how humanlike the emotions of a chimpanzee are. I was surprised by that. We know that we are the closest relatives to chimpanzees, and the other