Chimpanzees Treat Each Other’s Wounds

In the forests of Africa, it has recently been discovered that chimpanzees use various methods to not just treat and clean their own wounds, but also help others in a number of ways. While the reasons are unknown, this shows that the chimps are some of the few animals that care for each other.

Chimpanzees are known to be relatively smart in comparison to some other animals, and are also closely related to humans. Since we care for others quite often, the fact that chimps also care for each other may not come as a surprise to some. Although there are more cases of caring for themselves, there are also examples of them learning from and helping others. There are a diversity of ways they have treated wounds—and beyond.

A study in 2021 led by Dr. Elodie Freymann was conducted in the Budongo Forest in Uganda. Uganda is a country in East Africa and is landlocked, meaning it is surrounded by land on all sides. The study showed 34 sightings of chimps tending to their own wounds. Sometimes the treating method was relatively simple, like using leaves to clean the wounds, or licking them. Their saliva not only can clear away dirt from the wound but also disinfect it, since it may have lactoperoxidase (LPO) in it, which generates hypothiocyanous acid (HOSCN).

The more complex method, at least for the chimps, was to chew up the leaves or insects and the apply the mush to the wound. This may have been more effective since it had both the saliva and the leaf chemicals, and chewing it may have helped to release some of the chemicals more effectively.

There were less sightings of chimps helping other chimps outside of themselves, but they were more interesting. For instance, they saw a teenage male chimp sucking on the leg of another male chimp around the same age, possibly to help clean the wound.

Not all of them only helped close relatives, though. Many chimps also helped out unrelated chimps. In one sighting, a male chimp freed a female chimp from a rope trap. This shows that not only do they help each other, they help each other in different ways.

While whether the skills are instinctive or learned is not clear, scientists have guessed that simpler methods, like liking their wounds, were instinctive, while the more complex ones are probably learnt through imitation.

One example of that is when a mother chimp chewed up a leaf and applied it onto her wound. Afterward, the daughter copied her mother and chewed up a leaf and applied it to her mother’s wound. This supports the idea that some of the healing skills were learned by mimicking what another chimp does.

Chimps are one of the few animals that actively care for one another, even if they are unrelated chimps. The medical skills used by them are probably learned, which even stronger shows their resemblance to humans.

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