Chimps observed medicating themselves -- and others -- with insects for the first time [View all]

[brooklynite]

Washington Post

At the Loango National Park in Gabon, adult chimpanzee Suzee is shown inspecting a day-old wound on the foot of her adolescent son, Sia.

Then she abruptly sits up, grabs an insect from a nearby branch and pops it in her mouth. She takes Sia’s foot and applies the insect to the wound, repeating the process of extraction and application twice as her daughter looks on.

It was a moment, captured on video in 2019, which a group of researchers say marks the first time such behavior was observed and studied in chimpanzees. The incident prompted the Ozouga Chimpanzee Project to begin further monitoring. Now they say that over the course of 15 months, their researchers have observed 19 instances of chimpanzees applying insects to wounds on themselves — and three times to the wounds of others.

In correspondence published in Current Biology on Monday, the researchers said they were reporting the first observations of chimpanzees self-medicating with insects. They said the behavior is further evidence that chimpanzees have the capacity for “prosocial behaviors,” or voluntary actions that serve the best interest of another.