Chimpanzee

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Welcome to the next installment of Shit That Can Kill You Fridays!
This week STCKYF features the chimpanzee.

Native to sub-Saharan Africa, chimpanzees are mankind's (excluding scientists) closest genetic cousins. They are highly social animals who live in tight knit groups called communities. chimpanzees have the remarkable ability to create and uses tools. They use large sticks to dig into termite mounds and then smaller sticks to fish out the yummy termites. Chimps also use rocks, one as a hammer and the other as an anvil, to break open nuts. A 2007 study revealed chimps using spears. Chimpanzees in Senegal, the subjects of the study, sharpened sticks with their teeth that they then used to hunt. Well that's just great, they know how to make spears.

Chimpanzees are incredibly altruistic when it comes to other members of their community. They adopt orphans, share food, form coalitions, and cooperate in hunting. This kind of behavior strengthens the bonds of the community. On occasion, chimps have been observed showing altruism to non-community members by adopting orphans from other groups (insert "Awwww" HERE). The best documented display of altruism came in the form of inter species altruism a.k.a. feeding turtles. Yup, chimpanzees like to feed turtles... you heard it here first.

Chimpanzees are very territorial due to their close communities. Males often patrol the boarders of their territory and will aggressively confront any rival primate they come across. Chimps do not just kill other chimps; they literally tear each other apart. This was originally part of Jane Goodall's findings, but was kept out of her initial publication. She did not think it was good idea to connect human behavior to the chimps and then describe how violent they can be.

Each community is run by an alpha male, who is typically the largest and strongest. If the alpha male behaves tyrannically towards the betas of his community, they will revolt against him. Kill him. And then eat him. The beta males use rocks and sticks to beat the alpha to death. They will keep beating the body long after it is dead, too.

So what does all this have to do with humans? Well, as I previously pointed out, they have the ability to use tools to hunt and will use their tools to kill other chimps. Given the opportunity, they will do the same to you. Chimpanzees are more likely to attack humans if they are living in captivity than the wild. Wild chimps are cautious around humans because they don't know what the human is capable of. However, after living in captivity and getting to study the human, chimps realize that they can easily kill humans. Think about that for a second. They study us. How creepy is that?!

Don't let adorable baby chimpanzees fool you. They will grow up to be 130 lbs killers with 5x the strength of an adult man. If you happen to find yourself on the wrong end of a chimp's spear, I would suggest using a shotgun... unless they too have developed gunpowder in preparation for their Planet of the Apes style uprising...

Stay safe out there.

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Charles R Mercer

Amatuer Jane Goodall