Back in November 2019, Alessandra Mascaro, a volunteer working at the Ozouga Chimpanzee Project in Loango National Park, Gabon, West Africa, saw something she couldn't quite believe——one of the apes named Suzee noticed her son Sia had hurt his foot. After seemingly thinking about the best course of action, she then plucked an insect out of the air, licked it and applied it to the wound.
Mascaro captured the whole touching moment on film and showed her tutor, Dr. Tobias Deschner, a zoologist working for Ozouga. The Ozouga team then set about monitoring the chimpanzees in the park and looking for other examples of the behaviour. Over the following 15 months they captured 76incidences of the apes applying insects to wounds on themselves or other group members. There searchers are uncertain why the chimps use the insects, or even which insects they are, but suspect they might have lenitive properties that could provide pain relief.
However, the finding really proves that the act of applying am insect to treat other's wounds is a clear example of prosocial behavior (亲社会行为) that echoes the acts of empathy displayed by human beings. -This is, for me, especially breathtaking because so many people doubt prosocial abilities in other animals. Suddenly we have a species where we really see individuals caring for others, "Deschner said.
The team now aims to identify the insects being used by the chimpanzees and investigate who is applying insects to whom to establish whether the behaviour is based on a social rank. "We need to still put much more effort into studying great apes because it is crucial to shed light on our own cognitive evolution, "said Deschner.
