In the zoo environment, it has been observed that chimpanzees like bananas more than other 'less sweet' options such as kale or cucumber. In sanctuaries or zoos, chimps can be given food which includes a banana on a regular basis. Therefore, some chimpanzee groups in the wild see humans on a regular basis but have never seen or tasted a banana Visitors who go to the thick forests to see chimpanzees in their natural habitat are strictly prohibited from giving chimps any food - even bananas. Like monkeys or gorillas, chimpanzees in the wild can live their whole lives without ever seeing or tasting a banana. This is because they live in a wild rainforest environment which doesn't support the growth of banana plants. Do chimps eat bananas in the wild?Ĭhimpanzees in the wild do not eat bananas. Chimpanzees often hunt monkeys and small antelopes that can easily be overpowered.įorest habitats have very many animals that are quite small and chimpanzees can hunt and eat any of them. Like humans, chimps require a certain amount of animal protein and they get this by hunting and eating some animals in their habitat. While these might not be regarded as meat, they are a stable source of protein in cases where there are fewer options for hunted meat. Since they don't need a large part of their diet to consist of meat, chimps hunt less often and the kill is usually shared with the whole group.Ĭhimpanzees have strong incisors and can easily tear through raw meat without any hardship.Īnts, insects, and smaller invertebrates also make up a good source of animal protein for chimps. She has a couple of theories, including one that might sound familiar to human moms: mothers who have babysitters are better able to take care of themselves.Yes, chimpanzees eat meat and it is an important part of their diet accounting for around 6% of their overall diet. The next step, says Badescu, is to figure out exactly how and why this speedy weaning happens. "Because females have food all the time, they don't have to worry about the competition aspect between each other's offspring, so mothers can afford to let others take care of her baby while the mother does other stuff." Self-care for mothers "At our site at Ngogo, it's a very unusual place because they have so much food and it's so available all year round," she said. "So one mother's kind of looking around and saying, 'Well there's not a lot of food for all the infants we have right now, so I'm going to kill that other female's infant because I want mine to have resources,'" Badescu said.īut if there's no resource scarcity, the chimpanzees can work together to raise their young. Jane Goodall: 'It's not too late' to help endangered animals.The world's best known chimpanzee observer, Jane Goodall, found that chimp mothers in Tanzania were very protective of their young - partly because other females were known to steal infants and kill them. (Radovan Stoklasa/Reuters)īabysitting may not be unique to humans, but it's not universal among chimps either. That meant the mothers had more time to invest in their next offspring, so they reproduced faster, which Badescu says is "helpful from an evolutionary perspective" and "helpful for a species, overall."Ĭhimp babies wean faster if they have babysitters. "They were being weaned quicker than infants that weren't being babysat at all." "The infants that were babysat more had lower nursing rates, and they also were drinking less milk, so this suggests that they were becoming nutritionally independent," lead author Iulia Badescu, a PhD candidate in Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Toronto, told CBC News. The study, published in Royal Society Open Science, looked at 42 pairs of chimpanzee moms and infants at Kibale National Park in Ngogo, Uganda, and compared those who kept their babies close at all times with those who let other chimps hold and carry them. A good babysitter can make all the difference - for humans and for chimpanzees.Ī new study out of the University of Toronto has found that wild chimpanzee mothers who get help parenting their offspring are able to wean their young earlier and reproduce faster than chimps who go it alone.
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