Research on habits of hygiene and health care at primates suggests new perspectives on the origins of care behaviors.
Surprising care and hygiene behaviors at Photoniersin Org chimpanzei
People are not unique in terms of hygiene and health care habits, as the researchers discovered: chimpanzees wipe their posterior, care for the wounds of others and even clean after sexual contact, according to a recent study.
This discovery comes to complement other studies that have shown that chimpanzees use military tactics to achieve advantage over rivals.
Recent research, carried out by Oxford University (“Self-Direct and prosocial Wound which, Snare Removal, and Hygiene Behaviors amongst the Budongo Chimpanzees”)is not the first to show that the great primates take care of themselves. Scientists have also noticed, for example, that chimpanzees use insects to treat wounds – both their own and other individuals – and the orangutans apply on sap wounds and chewed leaves of plants with medicinal properties.
However, the authors of this new study claim that their observations bring a unique perspective: chimpanzees intentionally apply vegetable material chewed on wounds, and this behavior suggests that health care could be more widespread than previously believed.
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“Nine, people, we like to consider ourselves unique in many respects. For a long time we thought that health care is one of the areas in which we are special”said Dr. Elodie Freymann, one of the authors of the study.
But, she added, studies, including this new research, shows that the wild animals know how to take care of themselves – and how to use these skills to help other animals – when they are sick or injured.
This, said Freymann, has no implications for the origins of modern human health care systems, but also for the idea that non-human species are capable of empathy or altruism.
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“I think, as we find more and more cases in which animals help each other without an immediate benefit for themselves, the more evidence we show that this is not so unique to humans, as I once thought.”said the researcher.
Writing in the magazine Frontiers in Ecology and EvolutionDr. Freymann and his colleagues report how the Sonso and Waibira chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest in Uganda studied.
The team combined the recent observations, made over four months for each community, with observations in the Sonso community, made over a period of three decades.
The data revealed that the chimpanzees were usually injured either as a result of the fights between them or because of the traps. The team identified 23 cases of injury self-care in both communities, which ranged from the licking of the wounds, the buffering with leaves and the fingertips, to the application of chewed leaves, all these tactics having the role of stopping bleeding, cleaning the wounds and preventing infections.
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“Some of the plants that chimpanzees use to treat their wounds have proven healing and prevention of infections.”explained Dr. Freymann, adding that it is not clear if the primates are aware of these features.
Cimpanzees also demonstrated other self-care behaviors, such as the use of leaves to delete their genital organs or to clean their ass after defecation. They were also observed by removing the traps from their body.
The team of researchers also observed cases of mutual help between chimpanzees, even when they were not related, through gestures such as removal of traps, wound care or, in case, deleting a partner after sexual act.
“The self-care behaviors of the chimpanzees suggest the origins of human medical care”
Dr. Caroline Schupli, from the Max Planck Institute for studying animal behavior in Germany, which was not involved in the study, acknowledged that research is valuable and informative and that will guide future researchers in identifying key behaviors.
Schuppli also stressed that the existence of these behaviors at chimpanzees has important implications for understanding the origins of medical care in people: “I think it is clear that the cognitive abilities needed for such behaviors are shared by people and chimpanzees. And it is very likely that our common ancestors have already had these capabilities.”
