In another series of experiments, Dr. Tomasello and Felix Warneken compared the altruism of 18-month-old children with that of juvenile chimpanzees. Chimpanzees were not as helpful as the children in complicated tasks. But in simple tasks — picking up a dropped sponge, for example — they readily came to the aid of humans. "All in all, this bolsters the view of chimpanzees as highly cooperative creatures," said Dr. Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University who was not involved in the research.
Carl Zimmer, "Chimps Display a Hallmark of Human Behavior: Cooperation" (03 Mar 2006) (fake paragraphing removed for clarity).
If the students drop the ball during Civ Pro, though, they demonstrate that the chimps are probably more cooperative than larval lawyers.