Is This Another Sign of a Developing Chimpanzee Culture?

I have often wondered what chimpanzees can teach us about protohuman behavior in our own

distant past. “Lucy” and her kind, and even older human ancestors had brains roughly the size of
modern chimpanzees, and may have behaved in similar ways. Now researchers are studying a
peculiar chimpanzee social behavior that may hold clues to our ancestors’ development of
simple forms of social culture. It seems that a few groups of chimps have developed handshakes
as part of their grooming habits.

Chimps have been observed holding hands, raising them over their heads while they groom one
another with their free hands. Grooming has long been understood to be a way for the animals
to bond with one another as well as a way to remove insects and other matter from their fur. The
hand holding may be an extension of the bonding process.

Not all chimpanzee groups practice handshaking. Some groups hold hands while individuals in
other groups grasp one another’s wrists. These local variations seem to indicate that each chimp
group has developed its own method of handholding, which suggests that genetic or
environmental conditions are not involved in developing the behavior.

Handshaking, or hand holding, was first observed in a group of chimps in Tanzania, and has now
been observed in at least fifteen other groups. The behavior is not confined to Tanzania,
however. For example, four different groups of semi-wild, rescued chimpanzees live at the
Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage Trust in Zambia.

Edwin van Leeuwen and his colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguists
watched the Chimfunshi Wildlife groups between 2010 and 2012. They found that two of the
four groups practiced handholding while the other two did not. Interestingly, one of the two
handholding groups held hands while the other group used the wrist-grasping method.
Interviews with workers at the sanctuary indicate that this behavior has been occurring for at
least nine years.

The handholding behavior is passed down to young chimpanzees, who usually begin by
practicing the handholding behavior with their mothers. In this way, the behavior is being
passed down from generation to generation.

There’s more information on the possible ramifications of this behavior, and pictures showing the
chimps engaging in hand holding, here

Mysterious Apes in the Republic of Congo

What looks like a chimpanzee, eats like a chimpanzee, seldom climbs trees and makes nests on the ground like a gorilla? The answer is, nobody is quite sure.

Part of the problem in identifying these peculiar animals is that some of their behaviors appear to be more like those of gorillas, which currently do not seem to inhabit the region.

Skulls brought to Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren in 1908 were re-examined in 1970 and anthropologist Colin Groves determined that they were identical to the skulls of western gorillas. A much more recent skull recovered by wildlife photographer and conservationist Karl Ammann had the pronounced forehead ridge characteristic of gorillas while the rest of the skull bore a remarkable resemblance to those of chimpanzees.

Adding to the confusion is the animals’ diet. Unlike gorillas, which generally dine on various types of leaves, analysis fecal material shows that the mystery apes eat a diet rich in fruit.

Efforts are underway to determine whether these animals, known as Bondo mystery apes, are giant chimpanzees, some type of chimpanzee-gorilla hybrid, or an as-yet unidentified new subspecies of great ape. They are reclusive, like gorillas, and no live animals have been captured. Ammann is in the process of habituating a group of these ground-nesting chimps by offering them sugar cane.

The world of the great apes still holds mysteries. Are these animals chimpanzees who have somehow incorporated gorilla-like behaviors into their culture, or are they some completely new type of animal that developed its own unique adaptations to its environment? Karl Ammann is devoting his efforts toward finding answers. It will be interesting to see what he finds out.

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