Chimpanzees and gorillas, until recently, peacefully coexisted in Loango National Park in Gabon (Central Africa), quarreled. It came to murder. Previously, these great apes did not allow this in relation to each other. Never. And suddenly…
The two “clashes” were personally observed by German primatologists and biologists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Osnabr ck University. It was recently reported in the journal Nature, cited by a press release from the institute and The Daily Mail.
Who was the first to show aggression – gorillas or chimpanzees – is unknown. But so far the latter are winning. Physically weaker chimpanzees gain the upper hand due to the fact that they work together – they attack in large groups, making giant, but not so numerous, gorillas fleeing. They take, as they say, both number and skill. The two battles that have been witnessed by scientists looking after the primates in Loango since 2005 ended tragically for the giants. The chimpanzees caught up and beat to death two cubs, who did not have time to retreat with their mothers. The males were killed. One was deprived of his life with several strong blows, the other was ripped open with a sharp branch. The killed cubs were eaten by the females.
“The relationship between chimpanzees and gorillas has so far been considered relatively calm,” the scientists emphasize. And they report that they regularly observed how both species peacefully interact, collectively picking fruits from forage trees. And colleagues from the Congo even witnessed how representatives of two species of great apes played with each other.
Where does this merciless atrocity come from? Researchers have just begun to understand his motivations. But they already have an assumption. First of all, they sin on climatic changes, due to which there are fewer fruits in the forests of Central and East Africa – especially those that are included in the diet of great apes. The struggle for food seems to have provoked deadly competition.
Scientists fear that the aggravated food crisis could hit more elephants, which claim the same food resources as gorillas and chimpanzees. The case here can come to murder. It is not at all difficult to “fill up” the elephant calf.
BY THE WAY
Humanoid punishers
Gorillas have not yet been seen in ruthless and merciless atrocities, as well as in collective aggressive actions. Or, conversely, in an organized rebuff to the aggressors. But chimpanzees do that. The most famous example of the “civil war” that they unleashed about 50 years ago in Tanzania – in the local national park Gombe Stream. One tribe of chimpanzees fought with another for several years – they killed “foreigners”, arranging sorties as part of specially assembled punitive detachments. About what the “war correspondent” – the legendary British explorer Jane Goodall, who spent many years with primates in their natural habitat, once told about it.
By the way, Jane Goodall was the first to convict chimpanzees of both cannibalism and meat-eating in general – including the smaller primates they hunted. Chimpanzees used to be considered cute vegetarians.
And now, half a century later, a new surge of aggression. Now, as it turned out, “cute vegetarians” can eat a gorilla. True, small in size. Nightmare … There is no peace anywhere.
Details of the civil war of chimpanzees and their other humanoid behavior in our material.
AT THIS TIME
Little “white” chimpanzee found no place among “black” fellow tribesmen
Swiss researchers from the University of Zurich in Switzerland published a scientific article in the American Journal of Primatology, in which they described their observations in detail – they shared their joy and sorrow.
Ma l Leroux and his colleagues observing chimpanzees in Uganda noticed an albino chimpanzee among them. Previously, individuals with white hair and pink skin have not been found in the wild. Sometimes they were born in zoos.
A few days after the albino caught the eye of scientists, a terrible thing happened. He was killed by his own tribesmen, showing racial intolerance. The “white boy” was 19 days old.
The leader of the pack, uttering angry cries, took the “child” away from the mother, climbed high up a tree with him and there tore it to pieces. With the complete connivance of other males and females, including the mother. They only sniffed the brutally murdered and left the body on the branches.
