Chimpanzees use medicinal plants to clean their own wounds and those of others in their community, research has found.
Scientists say the "surprising" findings, based on detailed observations of the primates in the forests of Uganda, could shed light on the social bonds that led to health care among human beings.
The first author of the study, Dr Elodie Freymann, of the Institute of Human Sciences at the University of Oxford, said chimpanzees may also care for unrelated individuals “to build future alliances that could benefit them”.
“But it is also possible that this is a form of altruism that we’re seeing – chimpanzees helping others simply for the sake of helping. I don’t think that’s out of the question,” she told The National.
In Uganda’s Budongo Forest, Dr Freymann and her colleagues spent four months observing two communities of chimpanzees, the Sonso and Waibira. The researchers also pored through logbooks containing detailed observations stretching back decades, and surveyed other scientists who saw chimpanzees helping one another.
Many of the animals suffered injuries caused by accidents, fights or snares, with about four in 10 of the Sonso chimpanzees having been hurt by snares.
Socially minded
As well as recording dozens of cases of individuals carrying out care on themselves, the scientists witnessed seven instances of chimpanzees helping others, something known as prosocial care. Four cases of prosocial care involved animals helping individuals they were not related to.
The animals licked wounds, which cleared out debris and may have promoted healing because of the antimicrobial properties of saliva. They also licked their fingers and pressed them to wounds, dabbed leaves on injuries and chewed plant materials before applying them to lesions.
Once the researchers identified which plants the animals were using on their wounds, they went through scientific literature to see how these plants were traditionally used by people and whether they contained substances that are bioactive, meaning they have effects on organisms.
Researcher Dr Elodie Freymann carries out fieldwork in the Budongo Forest of Uganda. Photo: Austen Deery
“We found that quite a few of them did, and interestingly several of these plants had uses and properties relevant to wound healing,” she said.
All chimpanzees observed closely by the scientists recovered, although the researchers said the animals may have got better even if nothing had been done to the wounds. As well as wound treatment, prosocial care also involved removing snares and helping other chimpanzees with hygiene.
Rare behaviour
Dr Freymann said that, until now, there were just “a handful” of documented cases of chimpanzees showing prosocial care towards unrelated individuals. As a result, she was “surprised” to read such accounts in the research site’s logbook of unusual behaviour.
“Chimpanzees are incredibly intelligent and social animals, so why shouldn’t they be capable of recognising that others in their community need external assistance, and then provide that care? Our study expands the list of wild chimpanzee sites where this kind of prosocial care occurs, showing that it is more widespread and less rare than we previously thought," she said.
Humans can “learn a lot about ourselves and our evolutionary origins” by observing wild chimpanzees, Dr Freymann said. The creatures are one of humanity’s closest living relatives.
“They serve as interesting evolutionary models for understanding what our shared common ancestor may have been capable of,” she added. “The fact that chimpanzees clearly possess the ability to take care of their own wounds, and the wounds of others in their community, suggests that the origins of our healthcare systems may be more ancient than we may have thought.”
Chimpanzees groom each other in Uganda. Photo: Dr Elodie Freymann
Knowledge about the behaviour of chimpanzees towards health care could also prove useful to efforts to protect the animals, the scientists said in their paper, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
“As chimpanzee habitats become increasingly disrupted, and primate populations inch closer to extinction, understanding the socio-ecological pressures on chimpanzee healthcare behaviours could play a critical role in informing conservation strategies,” they wrote.
Protecting the plants the animals need to keep themselves healthy, and tackling the use of snares, could protect chimpanzees “from environmental and climatic disturbances that increasingly threaten their survival”.
Another great ape, the orangutan, made headlines a year ago when it was revealed that an injured male on the Indonesian island of Sumatra chewed plant leaves with medicinal properties and applied the juice to an open wound under his eye. A researcher involved in that work, Isabelle Laumer, told media at the time that it was the first known case of a wild animal treating a wound with a medicinal plant.
The scientists involved in the chimpanzee study worked from the Budongo Conservation Field Station, which Dr Freymann described as “an incredible field site” in the middle of the forest.
“All around you there are birds singing, insects chirping and chimps calling,” she said. “The trees are massive and many have giant buttresses that branch out along the forest floor. Every day, walking into the forest, you have the sense that anything could happen.”
Dr Freymann said there were “just so many unexplored areas” in the field of zoopharmacognosy, the term for animals self-medicating.
She aims to carry out fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon, where she will look for signs of animal self-medication in her new role as a post-doctoral fellow at Brown University, in the US.
LILO & STITCH
Starring:Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023 More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Once the domain of newspaper home deliveries, subscription model retailing has combined with e-commerce to permeate myriad products and services.
The concept has grown tremendously around the world and is forecast to thrive further, according to UnivDatos Market Insights’ report on recent and predicted trends in the sector.
The global subscription e-commerce market was valued at $13.2 billion (Dh48.5bn) in 2018. It is forecast to touch $478.2bn in 2025, and include the entertainment, fitness, food, cosmetics, baby care and fashion sectors.
The report says subscription-based services currently constitute “a small trend within e-commerce”. The US hosts almost 70 per cent of recurring plan firms, including leaders Dollar Shave Club, Hello Fresh and Netflix. Walmart and Sephora are among longer established retailers entering the space.
UnivDatos cites younger and affluent urbanites as prime subscription targets, with women currently the largest share of end-users.
That’s expected to remain unchanged until 2025, when women will represent a $246.6bn market share, owing to increasing numbers of start-ups targeting women.
Personal care and beauty occupy the largest chunk of the worldwide subscription e-commerce market, with changing lifestyles, work schedules, customisation and convenience among the chief future drivers.
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Under the UK government’s proposals, migrants will have to spend 10 years in the UK before being able to apply for citizenship.
Skilled worker visas will require a university degree, and there will be tighter restrictions on recruitment for jobs with skills shortages.
But what are described as "high-contributing" individuals such as doctors and nurses could be fast-tracked through the system.
Language requirements will be increased for all immigration routes to ensure a higher level of English.
Rules will also be laid out for adult dependants, meaning they will have to demonstrate a basic understanding of the language.
The plans also call for stricter tests for colleges and universities offering places to foreign students and a reduction in the time graduates can remain in the UK after their studies from two years to 18 months.
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
We are bringing you the inside story from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, a gathering of hundreds of world leaders, top executives and billionaires.
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Robo-advisers use an online sign-up process to gauge an investor’s risk tolerance by feeding information such as their age, income, saving goals and investment history into an algorithm, which then assigns them an investment portfolio, ranging from more conservative to higher risk ones.
These portfolios are made up of exchange traded funds (ETFs) with exposure to indices such as US and global equities, fixed-income products like bonds, though exposure to real estate, commodity ETFs or gold is also possible.
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Many robo-advisers charge what are called wrap fees, meaning there are no additional fees such as subscription or withdrawal fees, success fees or fees for rebalancing.
