Scientists have known for a while that chimpanzees sometimes use leaves and insects as medicines. Researchers, now studying in Uganda, have discovered that the chimps will sometimes give “First Aid” to help each other. But, you may ask, how do chimps use First Aid? Well, for example, when an female adult chimpanzee was injured, it would chew up a leaf and place it on her wound. When the younger daughter saw this behavior she would do the same, putting it on her mother’s injury.

In 2021, Dr. Elodie Freymann went to Uganda to study chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest. She was interested in learning how the chimps chew the leaf up that would wounds. Also as Dr. Freymann was looking through notes that came from other researchers’, she found that there were several stories about how chimpanzees caring for one another. She looked through 30 years of notes with her team. Additionally, they spent eight months studying two separate groups of chimps in the Budongo Forest.

The researchers’ found 34 ways chimps who would treat their wounds. The more common one, was licking or cleaning themselves with leaves. Licking the wound would remove the dirt that might make the wound harder to heal. But chew materials to the wounded injuries.

Finally, Dr. Freymann believes that some behaviors come from instinct, but others seem more complicated and are probably learned from born. Dr. Freymann wants to continue studying chimpanzees in order to figure out more about the Chimpanzees.

Source:

https://newsforkids.net/articles/2025/06/04/chimps-perform-first-aid-on-each-other/