Wild chimpanzees have been observed self-meditating their injuries with plants, providing medical aid to other chimpanzees and even withdrawing the others from the bells left by human hunters, suggest new research.
Behaviors – which are documented in a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Evolution and Ecology on Wednesday – provide new signs on the origin of medical care in humans.
The study combines historical data and about eight months of new observations, many of which are captured on video and photos. It provides additional evidence that our nearest living parents will chew the plants and apply makeshift disasters to injuries, clean the injuries of other animals by licking them and use leaves for a hygienic scrub after a sex or defecation. Chimpanzees have also been seen to press injuries and dab the medicinal leaves with injury.
The results, especially since they provide evidence that the chimpanzees who do not care about each other, add a new fuel to the debate on the question of whether humans are the only species capable of providing prosocial or altruistic care to others.
“One of the things to which humans have hung is that we are this very special species, because we are capable of altruism and that we are capable of empathy,” said Elodie Freymann, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford and the first author of the study. “Animals help each other. They are able to identify others in need, then meet these specific needs. ”
Chimpanzees and bonobos, another species of primate, are the genetic parents closest to humans. The study adds to an increasing set of research that suggests that the concept of health care could have evolved millions of years ago, before humans were a species.
“It is likely that our common common ancestor would also have been capable of these care behavior,” said Freymann.
A growing corpus of research suggests that other animal species could be self-medicated, with different levels of sophistication. Elephants have been shown to consume sheets used for medicinal purposes by humans, and some researchers suggest that animals meet specific needs, such as digestion.
The volume of research on animal medication behavior increases and that the outside researchers said that it is important evidence that could open a window on the past of our humanity.
“In our ancestors, we have examples of health care in humans from the Neanderthals or even before, but what is very interesting is that we still do not fully understand how this type of exploratory behavior has evolved,” said Alessandra Mascaro, a primatologist and doctoral student at Osnabrück University in Germany, which was not involved in the document. “We are only scratching the surface.”
In 2022 Mascaro published a study showing that chimpanzees in Gabon applied insects to their injuries, and she hopes that more observations will help determine how animals have developed this behavior.
The study of chimpanzee behavior is a difficult job because behaviors are relatively rare.
In this study, Freymann spent two four -month periods in the Budongo forest in Uganda, after fairly familiar wild chimpanzees with human researchers that they will ignore their presence. It can be physical and demanding to follow chimpanzees.
“There may be days when you are sitting at the base of a tree while they eat for eight hours, and there may be days when you hack the vineyards and cross rivers and stuck in pits in clay – your day is completely determined by what the group wants to do,” said Freymann, who would take notes on what the chips were eating, if they were sick and animals interacted.
Freymann observed several cases of care behavior in chimpanzee during his work in the field. She also came across a historic observations log of the research site, which presented cases that do not integrate into previous research studies. She found models of medical care that dates back in the 1990s.
“When people pool their results and observations, you can start to see these incredible stories in a way,” she said.
Between his own observations, the on -board journal and the additional data sources, Freymann has documented 41 cases of wound care in chimpanzees, including 34 personal care incidents and seven care for others, the study said. Four cases of care for others involved animals that were not closely linked.
“The results show that certain types of prosocial behavior towards non-Kinaries can be more widespread than we thought previously,” said Isabelle Laumer, primatologist and cognitive biologist of the Max Planck Institute of animal behavior in Germany, which was not involved in the new research. “More detailed surveys are necessary.”
Mascaro, who searched for the health behavior of chimpanzees in Gabon, said that new research in Uganda has shown that chimpanzees in different geographies have medical care behavior, which strengthens the confidence that behavior is common through the geography of the species.
“We didn’t know much about the chimpanzees on this side of Africa,” said Mascaro.
Self-medication has been documented in other primates. Laumer published a study last year showing an orangutan in Indonesia to chew the leaves several times and by applying the equipment to an injury to his face to heal an injury received in a fight. The plant used by orangutan is generally not consumed by the species, but it is known for humans as an analgesic.
This research line, in general, suggests that primates are able to find and determine the medicinal value of plants.
“Chimpanzees depend on the forest, not only for food, and not only for the shelter, but really as a pharmacy firm,” said Freymann, adding that it is important to preserve the forest resources that primates depend.
She added that humans have probably learned from these creatures and have changed a meaning for medicinal plants in the past. And she suggested that pharmaceutical companies could use the knowledge of these animals to identify useful medical resources in the future.
“If we want to face these incredible medicinal resources, watching and learning animals is an incredibly effective way to do so if it is done ethically and in a responsible manner,” said Freymann.
