Or why Kenny has to die.
Posted on 06/21/2010 6:34:12 PM PDT by Willie Green
Chimps, just like humans, kill each other for territory, researchers have found.
“Chimpanzees kill each other. They kill their neighbors. Up until now, we have not known why. Our observations indicate that they do so to expand their territories at the expense of their victims,” said John Mitani of the University of Michigan, a member of the research group.
The slayings usually are committed by small groups of males on patrol, said the scientists. But unlike in much human warfare—where armies are sometimes willing to attack other, comparably sized armies—the chimp killers specifically seek out lone or badly outnumbered victims for an easy ambush.
Common chimpanzees are one of the two species with the closest evolutionary relationship to people. Scientists believe that traits shared by chimps and humans were likely possessed by the common ancestors of both. Thus some researchers say the motives and methods of chimp violence may shed light on how human violence evolved.
Yet Mitani and colleagues argue that studies of chimp aggression will reveal more about why humans so often work together than about why we do battle. “Using our results to address an enduring question about why humans are an unusually cooperative species may prove to be a more productive line of inquiry,” the researchers wrote.
Their findings are reported in the June 22 issue of the research journal Current Biology.
Mitani and colleagues studied chimps living in Ngogo, Kibale National Park, Uganda, which have been under observation over a decade. During that time, a team directed by Mitani and David Watts of Yale University documented 21 killings by the Ngogo chimps of individuals from other groups. Eighteen of those killings were seen directly, while the rest were deduced from circumstantial evidence.
The researchers think up to 13 of the victims belonged to a single neighboring group, representing an “extremely high” rate of mortality due to violence among groups.
With some of their competitors out of the way, the Ngogo chimpanzees began to use a large portion of new territory to the northeast of their previous range. “Because the newly acquired territory corresponds to the area once occupied by many of the victims, we suggest that a causal link exists” between the violence and the territorial expansion, Mitani said.
Mitani and his colleagues think the new territory most likely benefits the chimps by affording greater access to food. It may also ultimately lead to greater access to females, but it’s too early to tell, the scientists said.
The attacks are triggered when bands of chimpanzees go out “on patrol” into the territory of a neighboring chimpanzee community, the researchers added. “Patrollers are quiet and move with stealth,” Mitani said. “They pause frequently to scan the environment as they search for other chimpanzees. Attacks are typically made only when patrolling chimpanzees have overwhelming numerical superiority over their adversaries.”
The Ngogo chimps may have an unusual advantage over their neighbors due to the impressive size of their community, which may explain the surprisingly high level of violence, the researchers say. There are more than 150 Ngogo chimps—about three times the number found in chimp communities studied elsewhere.
The study could shed light on how cooperation evolved among humans and related species, Mitani and colleagues said. This is because brutal as the chimp slayings may be, they illustrate how animals cooperate for the benefit of their group.
“Our observations indicate that territorial conflict leads chimpanzees in some groups to cede land to members of other groups as a consequence of lethal coalitionary aggression,” the researchers wrote. “In the process, chimpanzees in communities that gain territory obtain increased access to resources that are then available to others in the group.”
The evolutionary question is whether these benefits outweigh the costs for individual chimps; if not, it’s hard to explain how such cooperative behavior could have evolved, Mitani noted.
I've never seen a moose deliberately kill an ant.
Gee, some bonehead just figured out that animals are territorial. Put two animals together in the same territory and see what happens. When we were kids, we used to put a bunch of ants from one pile onto another pile and watch the fight. Idiots. And we probably paid for the study. Kind of like a govt study to figure out why kids fall off of their tricycles. They lose their balance. Duh.
With feet that big how could they not? :-)
I just like to call them that. It pisses them off.
Ever been on a picnic with moose?
A moose once bit my sister.
|
|
|||
Gods |
This explains leftwing politics. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · Archaeology · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
And they eat one another.
Or why Kenny has to die.
They also kill and eat bushbabies, y’know, because chimps kinda suck.
Animals killing their own kind for territory, food, or mates is very common in the animal kingdom. Very interesting article.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.