![]() This provides an evolutionary incentive for the apes to expand their range-and its associated resources-by any means necessary.Ĭan chimpanzee skirmishes tell people anything about their own violent tendencies? One lesson, which may surprise cynics, is that humans are more peaceful than chimps. Such motivation makes sense in the context of the discovery in 2004, by Jennifer Williams of the University of Minnesota, that larger territories enabled chimps in neighbouring Tanzania to produce more offspring. This suggests that real estate, not a tight mating market, is the true motive for chimp combat. Though the territorial upgrade may eventually attract new mates, none of the displaced females has been spotted joining the Ngogo group. By the time the study ended, the Ngogo group's campaign had displaced its rivals completely, annexing the north-eastern lands and enlarging its range by 22%. Almost all of the killings occurred in this disputed territory, which sported particularly fine stands of the chimps' favourite fruit-tree. Using the Global Positioning System to map patrol routes and attack locations, they saw that the Ngogo chimps' reconnaissance fanned mainly beyond their north-eastern border, encroaching onto the land of a neighbouring group. The researchers therefore asked whether geography offered a better explanation. Though these assaults on mothers were rarely lethal, patrolling chimps were clearly more likely to batter females than recruit them as mates, suggesting that other motives might drive their violent behaviour. But most victims were juveniles, and of both sexes.įurthermore, chimpanzee mothers were often beaten as the raiders snatched and killed their offspring. If the purpose of chimpanzee warfare were either rape or the abduction of mates, then the expectation would be that adult males would be the targets of lethal violence. To understand what motivated this violence, the researchers looked at which chimps were actually attacked. In each case, males colluded to kill chimps from a neighbouring group. All but one of the 18 fatal attacks Dr Amsler witnessed occurred during boundary patrols. But on 114 occasions Dr Mitani's colleague Sylvia Amsler watched large groups of males strike out on silent, single-file patrols to the fringes of their territory. Most of the time, the Ngogo chimps were anything but model soldiers-squabbling, foraging and lolling about their domain. ![]() Between 19 Dr Mitani and his colleagues shadowed a group of chimpanzees called the Ngogo, who live in the Kibale national park in Uganda.
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