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> living side by side with creatures that are only quite like us is an experience that has been lost in the collective human memory

I played with and interacted with chimpanzees quite a few times around Africa [1], and spent hundreds of hours watching them and just chilling while they ate, slept and played.

Sitting face to face with a large chimp on your lap is an incredible experience, and watching their facial expressions, emotions and reactions while checking out their fingerprints and having them groom your beard is a very powerful experience.

To my very core I had the feeling we are them and they are us.

Spending time with gorillas was cool too [2], but I didn't exactly play with them!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfdo3s8tPUk

[2] https://youtu.be/M1vhZ03OKKE?t=84

I remember an old PBS Nova episode from the 70's. Someone used a PDP-8 to build an icon-based chat mechanism. The chimp caught on pretty fast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwZWWsc5xDk#t=32m

It was very clear how intelligent they are. I saw them distract and trick each other (and me), I saw them quickly hone in on my keys in my pocket and try to get them, I saw them be kind, gentle, hurtful, violent, angry, sad, lazy, sleepy. I saw and experienced them being extremely kind, patient and gentle, and very clearly try to communicate to me with hand gestures, smiles, and "follow me" hands.

Even the little ones ran over to me and held up their arms for "pick me up!"

(As a male homo sapiens, I have to say that if Neanderthal women looked like this [0], they may have looked a bit strange, but certainly not repelling or un-human.)

On a couple of occasions, I dated women who were considerably taller than me. One of them had a very big, toothy smile, and liked to wear horns when she went to Renaissance festivals. I used to call her my "wild thing," in reference to the Maurice Sendak book.

EDIT: Come to think of it, there's Robert Crumb's drawings of his getting piggyback rides with his wife at the time. Kind of similar in spirit.

strangely arousing you might say

If you live in any modern day melting pot big city, and somehow there existed a Neanderthal that was raised by modern day Sapiens, you might have walked past them earlier today without noticing.

Differences within Sapiens are a thing too and we don't really notice them most of the time: https://www.boredpanda.com/tall-people-problems-japan/

You'll enjoy this Why Files episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juyvnVL6V7g

>Humans are the apex predator. Not an apex predator. The apex predator. Other than a handful of bacteria and viruses, there’s pretty much nothing stronger, more intelligent, or more adaptable than Homo sapiens

One of my favorite youtube channels. Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Apparently there must be a bunch of haters of goldfish with Bronx accents on HN.