In the wildlife orphanage of Chimfunshi, Zambia, chimpanzees began to run with herbs in the tail. Since then, they didn’t want anything else.
The captive chimpanzees developed a new taste and began to hang herbs on ears and tail.
This unusual “trend” was reported in a study last week in the Behaviour.
The investigators noticed that the chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) introduced a sheet of grass or stick into the ear or rectum and then leave it hanging for a while.
Behavior does not seem to have any physical or medical purpose. It’s just ‘carolice’but spreads socially from chimpanzee to chimpanzee.
This is the second time that behavior of the genre has taken over the chimpanzees of the sanctuary. But putting herb in the tail is new. In 2014, the herb behavior in the ear was first reported in a group. Now another group of the sanctuary has introduced the bold style to use Herb in the rectum.
Both groups do not have any contact with each other, but share the same human keepers.
As it writes, it is suspected that the part of the ears behavior has originated because the chimpanzees copy their human keepers before spreading through the groups.
What does that mean?
“These caregivers mentioned that they sometimes put a sheet of grass or a matchstick in their own ears to clean them,” said the study leader, Edwin van LeeuwenAssistant Professor of Behavior and Animal Cognition at the University of Utrecht (Netherlands) in.
“But caregivers of the other groups said they didn’t do that.” That is, caregivers didn’t get anything in the tail. According to Van Leeuwen, the chimpanzees they discovered alone “that they could also stick the leaves in another place”.
Then the animals often copy each other’s behaviors.
No purpose
Researchers have also documented temporary fashions that spread throughout the populations without an obvious benefit.
Some Orcas (Orcinus Orca) from Northwest Pacific, for example, are famous for this. The bizarre habit of swimming with dead salmon in the head are uncovered.
A male called Juma was identified as the possible responsible From the bold and bold variation of herb in the tail, which, according to the new study, spread by most of his group companions within a week.
The fault is free time …
Investigators suspect that the captivity will play a crucial role in these trends.
“In captivity, they have more free time than in nature.” said Van Leeuwen. They don’t have to be so alert or spend so much time looking for food. ”
On the contrary, the Wild chimpanzeeswhich were not observed to adopt these seemingly frivolous behaviors, have more than doing. They spend their days looking for food and have to face many more challenges than captive chimpanzees, which usually receive their meals.
If the wild chimpanzees were someone from the Portuguese humorous universe, they would probably be the famous “Alfama Dude”of the smelly cat, who “Never put anything in C*…”, because he had to be in front of combat.
