Chimps as people or people as chimps

A weak leader is struggling to retain power, but ambitious upstarts are planning a conspiracy to overthrow the leader. The increased tension, the community splits and the killing starts. The war will last for many years.

No, it's not the plot of a political Thriller, and the real events that are associated with chimpanzees in the national Park of Tanzania. Look at the social fragmentation that led to the four-year war in the 1970s shows similarities between the processes in human society and clans of monkeys.

Joseph Feldblum from Duke University and his colleagues to revise the old notes on chimpanzees, in order to understand what led to the conflict. His team used old data in the software, which can describe the social network of chimpanzees. A chimp suddenly divided into two groups: one North, one South. "It's hard to say what caused the split, but it happened when he died the eldest male (the Faces) at the end of 1970. As soon as Leakey died they started the split," says Feldblum. "He seems to have been a bridge between the Northern and southern chimps".





After the death of the Faces of chimpanzees Humphrey became the alpha male, but he was weak and faced with the pressure of two brothers from the South, Hugh and Charlie. Other chimps began to follow either Humphrey or brothers. The battle began. For four years, Humphrey's group destroyed the band of brothers, seven chimpanzees-men died or disappeared. Such social fragmentation resembles human society. This means that companies chimpanzees can help us to understand the development of human society.

Chimpanzee violence is rare, but may differ cruelty. Male chimps that fall foul of the hierarchy of the community can be severely punished for disobedience. But the process goes both ways. In 2011, four monkeys of low rank killed the alpha male of the group living in Tanzania.

Women do not also avoid violence: in some areas of Uganda they regularly beat the men with whom they mated. It served as preventive measures against infidelity. In addition, the team of Jane Goodall saw a mother and daughter Duo grabbed and killed the baby chimpanzees from their own community. It was not an isolated case: other female chimps in Uganda has also been seen killing infants. Chimpanzees are known to attack people. In the Virunga national Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in 2012, a chimpanzee killed 10 people, due to increasing conflict.

 

 

Source: nauka24news.ru/