APE

APE (Heb. קוֹף), animal enumerated among the precious articles that Solomon imported (I Kings 10:22, II Chron. 9:21). The word kof derives from the Sanskrit kapi, meaning a tailless ape. In rabbinic literature, however, it refers both to the tailed and the tailless species. Mention is made of the fact that they were employed to keep houses free of creeping things (Tosef., BK 8:17), and they were even trained for domestic uses (Tosef., Er. 3:12). The Sifra (51:4), basing itself upon Leviticus 11:27, enumerates it among the animals forbidden to be eaten. In the Mishnah (Kil. 8:5) there is discussion of whether the laws of ritual uncleanness which apply to a human corpse also apply to creatures called adonei ha-sadeh ("the lords of the field") which some scholars have identified with chimpanzees. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lewysohn, Zool, 64 ff.; F.S. Bodenheimer, Ha-Ḥai be-Arẓot ha-Mikra, 2 (1956), index; J. Feliks, Animal World of the Bible (1962), 49. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Feliks, Ha-Ẓome'aḥ, 275. (Jehuda Feliks)