In other words, they hunted monkeys other than colobus as well as blue duikers (but not red) more often than they do now. Interestingly, though, the Sonso chimps displayed less choosy hunting habits (similar to the Waibiras) in the early years of the Budongo Forest research. That's true even of the females in the community that were born into the Sonso group, which doesn't seem to have red duiker on the menu. Waibira chimps, on the other hand, seem to get equally excited over a duiker dinner and a course of colobus. "Feeding on the meat of other species appears less preferred, with individuals even discarding the carcass uneaten." "It appears that in the absence of red colobus, which are not present in the Budongo Forest, Sonso chimpanzees have instead specialised in hunting Guereza colobus monkeys," the team writes.
The researchers note that in a number of other regions, chimps seem to have a distinct appetite for the red colobus monkey as prey (including in places inhabited by both red and Guereza colobus). So why these differences between two chimp populations in the same forest? Let's start with prey preference. After Sonso chimps successfully killed an animal, high-ranking males tended to commandeer the carcass even if they hadn't done the capturing, often aggressively harassing subordinate chimps in the process.ĭespite begging from a fellow group member, a young female (right) refuses to share her duiker dinner. That's not the only contrast the researchers uncovered. (That's a lot of blues and reds floating around.) The carnivorous component of their diet, in other words, was more evenly split between primates and non-primates. Once, and once only, Sonso chimps were seen to pursue a red duiker – and they came up empty.īy comparison, Waibira chimps were most successful at hunting both blue and red duikers, though they also pursued Guereza colobus as well as blue and red-tailed monkeys. Blue monkeys were the next most frequent target, with red-tailed monkeys, olive baboons, blue duikers and elephant shrews accounting for the rest. Sonso chimps seem to especially favour Guereza colobus monkeys, the prey in about 74 percent of observed hunts. īoth the Sonso and Waibira chimps hunt, but it turns out what they hunt and how they dine differs between the two communities. Habituating two chimp clans that share genetic flow and the same basic habitat gives biologists a rare opportunity to assess whether a behaviour unique to one group is "a socially acquired 'cultural' variant", as the researchers put it in a paper just published in PLOS ONE. And they probably wouldn't stem from significant genetic differences, either, because there's some dispersal between the two populations: when the team began following the Waibira clan, for example, they found several Sonso-born females as members. Image: Cat Hobaiterīecause the two populations inhabit adjoining ranges, behavioural disparities between them are less likely to be explained by fundamental ecological differences.
On the hunt for a Guereza colobus monkey, the favourite prey of the Sonso chimps. They live in the same forest and have access to the same prey, but they hunt for different species and seem to share food differently," Hobaiter said in a press release about the new study. "The differences in hunting between these communities are dramatic – so we wanted to try to understand why. And a new study from a long-term research project in Uganda's Budongo Forest – a large tract of tropical forest along the Albertine Rift – has revealed some fascinating differences in hunting and meat-sharing between neighbouring chimp groups.ĭr Catherine Hobaiter of the University of St Andrews and her colleagues compared the Sonso community of chimps, which has been closely studied since 1990, with their neighbours to the northeast, the Waibira chimps, which researchers began habituating in 2011. Image: Cat Hobaiterĭespite some broad similarities, however, chimps from different regions don't show all the same predatory preferences or traditions. An alpha male chimp tucks into a meaty meal, with hungry onlookers hoping for scraps.
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