Chimps Start To Care About Each Other

Have you ever believed other animals use medicine? Researchers studying chimpanzees in Uganda have discovered that the animals will sometimes provide “first aid” to each other. This suggests that chimpanzees may be able to think about how to help others, as well as themselves.

Scientists have long known that chimpanzees sometimes use leaves or insects as medicine. Chimpanzees are one of the animal species most closely related to humans. Because of this, researchers have carefully studied the lives of chimpanzees in many different ways. The researchers observe the chimps by being gentle and not making aggressive movements. One area that has scientists curious is how chimpanzees care for themselves when they are sick or hurt.

In 2021, Dr. Elodie Freymann went to Uganda to study the chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest. She was interested in learning more about the methods the chimpanzees used to help themselves when they got hurt. Dr. Freymann had already done work investigating how chimps eat certain plants, using them as medicine.

As Dr. Freymann was looking through notes from other researchers, she noticed that there were several stories about chimpanzees caring for themselves or others. She and her team decided to look through 30 years of notes from researchers who had studied chimpanzees in the region. They also spent eight months studying two separate groups of chimpanzees in the forest. The researchers found 34 examples of chimpanzees treating their own wounds.

Often, this sort of “self-care” was very basic, like licking a wound or cleaning themselves with leaves. Sometimes it was more complicated. In some cases, Dr. Freymann says, the chimpanzees “chew the plants up, and then apply the chewed material to the open injury.”

surprised because the chimps are developing technology like us.