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Chimpanzees (left) and gorillas have previously been known to dislike violence against one another.
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HAI-Online.com – During this group chimpanzee and group gorilla known not to be violent towards each other.
It is known that two species hominid live together peacefully in certain areas, so witnessing the fight between them for the first time is sad news for researchers.
Two separate battles between the two species were observed in Loango National Park in Gabon in 2019. In both wars the number chimpanzee exceeds the amount gorilla and they trigger the attack first. In those two attacks, baby gorilla was killed.
In a new study documenting the battle, researchers hope to shed light on what may be behind the unusual aggression. They wanted to identify whether it was related to territorial battles, competition for resources, or something else.
“Our observations provide the first evidence that the existence of chimpanzee can have a lethal effect on gorilla,” said Tobias Deschner, a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. Science Alert.
“We now want to investigate the factors that trigger this surprising aggressive interaction,” said Deschner.
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The first interaction or conflict between a group of chimpanzees and a group of gorillas in the national park area occurred in February 2019. This battle involved 18 chimpanzees and five gorillas (one silverback, three adult females, and one baby), and lasted 52 minutes.
The group of chimpanzees encountered the group of gorillas on their way back from their visit to the neighboring region.
The second battle took place in December 2019, involving 27 chimpanzees (some of whom were involved in the first incident) and seven gorillas (one silverback, three adult females, one juvenile, and two babies), and lasted 79 minutes. In this conflict, the chimpanzee group found the gorilla group at the start of their border patrol.
In both cases, the chimpanzee group can separate the baby gorilla from its mother and kill it. Even in the second incident, the baby gorilla was eaten by the chimpanzees. The other gorillas fled, while several chimpanzees were injured in battle in the first clash.
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What causes chimpanzees and gorillas to go to war?
Researchers think that the chimpanzees may have seen the baby gorillas as prey, or that they were competing for food, or that the fight was for territory.
“It is possible that the sharing of food resources by chimpanzees, gorillas and forest elephants in Loango National Park results in increased competition and sometimes even lethal interactions between the two great ape species,” said Deschner.
Observing the interactions between chimpanzees and gorillas is not easy. Because researchers need to give the primates space and respect. In addition, the large area involved, the rarity of the gorilla population, the nature of the habitat, and so on also make observing them quite difficult.
With that in mind, it’s possible that killings between the two species were actually more common than the researchers’ records suggest. However, it is interesting to note that the two deadly encounters occurred during parts of the year when food such as fruit was less available.
A research report on these two encounters of chimpanzees and gorillas was published in the journal Scientific Reports on July 19, 2021. But observational work in Loango National Park continues, and the researchers hope they can learn more about the attitudes of chimpanzees and gorillas to one another, and the species. other hominids.
“We are only at an early stage to understand the effects of competition on interactions between two great ape species at Loango,” said Simone Pika, a cognitive biologist from the University of Osnabrück in Germany.
“Our study shows that there is still much to be explored and discovered about our closest living relatives, and Loango National Park with its unique mosaic habitat is a unique place to do so.”
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“For The First Time, Chimpanzees And Gorillas Seen At War In The Wild”
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