Wild Chimpanzees Filmed Using Forest First Aid

Chimpanzees in Uganda have been observed using medicinal plants - in multiple ways - to treat open wounds and other injuries.

Credit: Elodie Freymann

University of Oxford scientists, working with a local team in the Budongo Forest, filmed and recorded incidents of the animals using plants for first aid, both on themselves and occasionally on each other. Their research builds on the discovery last year that chimps seek out and eat certain plants to self-medicate.

The scientists also compiled decades of scientific observations to create a catalogue of the different ways in which chimpanzees use "forest first aid". Researchers say the study, which is published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, adds to a growing body of evidence that primates, including chimps, orangutans and gorillas, use natural medicines in a number of ways to stay healthy in the wild.

Lead researcher Elodie Freymann explained there was "a whole behavioural repertoire that chimpanzees use when they're sick or injured in the wild - to treat themselves and to maintain hygiene". They also found that chimpanzees tend to the wounds of other animals they weren't related to. This is particularly exciting, explained Dr Freymann, "because it adds to the evidence that wild chimpanzees have the capacity for empathy".

Chimpanzees are not the only non-human apes with apparent knowledge of plant-based medicine. A recent study showed a wild oranguatan using chewed leaf material to heal a facial wound. See World First: Orangutan Applies Own Medicine.

Scientists think studying this wild ape behaviour - and understanding more about the plants the chimps use when they are sick or injured - could help in the search for new medicines.

Source