![]() They'll run and stomp and drag branches," says Feldblum. "What chimpanzees do as part of dominance competition, male chimpanzees can puff up their hair and make themselves look bigger. "The cliques began to harden," according to the new data. "When Hugh and Charlie came charging with their hair on end into a group, in tandem, they were very intimidating," says Pusey.īy 1971, researchers found the northerners and southerners met less frequently. (Jamie Hopkins/CBC News)īut the other two were no shrinking violets. In the early 1970's, British primatologist, Jane Goodall and her colleagues studied the chimpanzees of Gombe National Park, and witnessed as a once-unified communities turned on each other. "To be clear," says Feldblum, "Humphrey was the alpha male of the group at the time, and he was able to intimidate all the other males individually." There was increasing tension among this trio. Charlie and Hugh, who are believed to be brothers, withdrew to the south. Which brings us back to Humphrey, who was partial to hanging out in the north. They started noticing that some males spent more time in the northern part of the park, while another group would hang out in the southern part. Researchers have analyzed what they call "shifting alliances" among 19 male chimpanzees, leading up to the big split.Ĭlusters of males grew more distinct over time, they say. Pusey worked alongside Goodall in Gombe and has spent the last 25 years archiving and digitizing Goodall's handwritten notes. Anne Pusey, Jane Goodall Institute Research Center, Duke University 'When Hugh and Charlie came charging … they were very intimidating'. "We were able to examine the course of the split in more detail and pinpoint when it became obvious more precisely," says co-author and Duke anthropologist Anne Pusey. "There's still a bit of uncertainty, even with people who were there at the time, about exactly what happened," Feldblum tells CBC News.īut thanks to new digitized data taken from Goodall's own field notes from that period, Feldblum and a team of scientists were able to get a clearer, more detailed picture of what they call "the seeds of the conflict." (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File) (Rick Rycroft/Associated Press) ![]() Primatologist Jane Goodall sits near a window where behind a chimpanzee eats in its enclosure at Sydney's Taronga Zoo. In Gombe, Goodall and her colleagues watched a once-unified group of chimps disintegrate into two rival factions. You'll recall from all those wildlife documentaries that chimps are our closest animal relatives. They were about to get a reality check of the wild kingdom variety.Īccording to a new study, the same things that fuel deadly clashes in humans - like power, ambition, and jealousy - can also tear apart chimpanzees. "They thought they were peaceful and egalitarian." "Jane and other researchers who came to Gombe initially had this idea that chimpanzees were these idyllic forest-dwelling species that could provide this model for what humanity could be like," says Duke University researcher Joseph Feldblum. These are some of the same chimps that British primatologist Jane Goodall was studying at the time, looking at social and family dynamics. In the early '70s, the trio was part of a tight-knit community of wild chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.Ĭheck out the family feud involving Humphrey, Charlie and Hugh. This is an excerpt from Second Opinion, a weekly roundup of eclectic and under-the-radar health and medical science news emailed to subscribers every Saturday morning.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |