Born in Los Angeles at an animal trainer's compound, Grub was pulled from his chimpanzee mother and sold to a Florida tourist attraction when he was only a few months old. His first few years were spent in the company of an infant orangutan.

Now at his permanent home in Wauchula, Grub is a young adult male and is the undisputed head of his group. He plays readily with three female chimpanzees (Toddy, Kenya, and Noelle), and allows himself to be groomed by them, and occasionally grooms Noelle in return.

Grub eagerly participates in all types of enrichment activities. He likes to paint and gets very excited when he sees the staff with brushes and canvases. Grub has created many beautiful paintings and concentrates very hard while he’s painting. In 1996, he was featured on the NBC Today Show in a story about animals and art.

He also likes facemasks and learned years ago how to make a mask from pieces of paper or cardboard by tearing out two eyeholes. When Grub particularly likes a volunteer or visitor, he’ll find a piece of cardboard in his enclosure, tear out a mask with eyeholes, and offer it to the visitor. If no paper or cardboard is available, he’ll find a leaf to make his “mask-gift”!

As enrichment, Grub has learned many signs in American Sign Language and uses them appropriately. Grub particularly likes dogs. When the sanctuary's 9-year-old golden retriever was adopted, Grub was very excited to see him, ran over to the edge of the outdoor habitat near the dog, and signed "chase.” He then ran back to get some primate chow biscuits and tossed them out to the very surprised dog.

Even though Grub is over 145 pounds and his fierce “displays” usually end with him throwing large barrels into the air, he can be extremely gentle. He interacts daily with the handicapped juvenile chimpanzee, Knuckles. Grub grooms and tickles Knuckles and seems to know that he’s special. When Grub once stuck his finger in Knuckles’ mouth (in play)… and received a very hard bite from Knux, he ran screaming and holding his finger, but came right back to Knuckles and gently tickled him again. If any of the other chimps had bitten his finger, he would very likely have retaliated!

Grub is a handsome and smart male chimpanzee and is one of everyone’s favorite chimps at the sanctuary.