Study Finds Chimpanzees Exhibit Human Quality of Empathy As They Treat Each Other’s Wounds [Video]

• Chimpanzees in Gabon’s Loango National Park have been observed to treat each other’s wounds.
• The study of the Ozouga Chimpanzee Project observed almost 20 behaviors of chimps treating wounds of other chimps with insects.
• The study also shows how human behaviors are also exhibited by chimpanzees, especially empathy.

---

Since 2019, Ozouga Chimpanzee Project, led by Simone Pika, a cognitive biologist at the University of Osnabruck in Germany and primatologist Tobias Deschner have been studying the behavior of chimpanzees in Ghana.

It started when they were sent a video showing a female chimpanzee named Suzee catching an insect, squeezing it then applying it to a wound on the foot of another chimpanzee. She repeated the action twice.

Another adult male called Freddy was observed by a Ph.D. student to also apply an insect to his wound a week after.

And in the next 15 months, there were 19 cases of central chimpanzees in Gabon’s Loango National Park that exhibited the same behavior.

Pika said that the injured chimpanzees exhibited happiness over being treated by their chimp companions.

Pika added that “It takes [a] lot of trust to put an insect in an open wound. They seem to understand that if you do this to me with this insect, then my wound gets better. It’s amazing.”

The researchers have yet to identify the specific insect that the chimpanzees have been using.  There are studies that show that some insects have established medicinal properties like reducing swelling.

It is not unusual for chimpanzees to self-medicate as the behavior has been observed in different animal species that includes birds, reptiles, insects, and mammals.

Pika said, “For instance, our two closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, swallow leaves of plants with anthelmintic properties and chew bitter leaves that have chemical properties to kill intestinal parasites.”

These observations and studies only prove that prosocial behaviors related to “human emotions” like empathy are also traits seen in other animals. Caring for each other is not exclusive to humans.

Source: Daily Paws