CNN Indonesia
Sunday, 10 Dec 2023 07:54 IWST
Illustration. Scientists managed to capture a rare moment when a male chimpanzee stole an eagle’s food. (Photo: Pixabay/gerritbril)
Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
One person scientist managed to capture the rare moment when one chimpanzee A male steals an eagle’s meal in the Issa Valley, Western Tanzania.
Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes) are vegetarian animals but they also eat meat or other animal products. On several occasions, these chimpanzees also eat animal carcasses.
The new study, published Oct. 31 in the journal Primates, highlights the ability of chimpanzees to confront other predators and take their food in indiscriminate scavenging behavior.
Lead author Sam Baker, Research Coordinator of the Bugoma Primate Conservation Project in Uganda, was following the chimpanzees with Kidosi Raulent Mfaume, a local field assistant, when they saw Imba, the alpha male chimpanzee, running into the grass field.
A crowned eagle (Stephanoaetus coronatus) then immediately flew away. Moments later, Imba appeared with a motionless young deer that the study authors said had just been captured by the eagle.
“Like most new experiences, especially rare ones, this moment felt real and exhilarating,” Baker said, quoted LiveScience.
“This confrontation is rare in the literature, mostly inferred, so the almost complete observation of the event is unique.” he added.
Another chimpanzee tried to steal the carcass and begged Imba to share it for about an hour. He gave some to the female chimpanzee and ate most of the prey himself.
After disposing of the carcass, the other chimpanzees then went and collected the remains themselves. In the end, only the skull remained.
This documentation is the second example of chimpanzees’ confrontational scavenging by stealing food from other animals.
A 2019 study published in the Journal of Human Evolution found that chimpanzees also steal from leopards (Panthera pardus). In fact, chimpanzees are one of the leopards’ prey.
According to Baker, chimpanzees are one of our closest living relatives. They, he said, provide a picture of the lives of our last ancestors who lived about 6 to 8 million years ago and the evolution of human behavior.
Scavenging for food could have led to increasingly complex social behavior in early humans. This, Baker says, “is like an evolutionary stepping stone, passive to confrontational scavenging, to cooperative hunting.”
Mfaume, a field assistant who also witnessed the incident, but was not named in the study, died of illness in 2022 at the age of 29.
Baker said he wanted to dedicate his research to Mfaume’s memory. “She was a beautiful person and had an indelible soul, full of passion for the forest and its chimpanzees,” added Baker.
(rfi/dmi)
2023-12-10 00:54:18
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