9/17/2023 0 Comments Chimpanzee attackPrior to 2019 in the rare times that we had observed interactions between chimpanzees and gorillas, they were considered as relatively relaxed, and we had even observed two encounters where both species fed peacefully in foraging trees. During our daily field work with the chimpanzees, contact with gorillas is mostly indirect and in the form of imprints in the mud and left-over traces of food at feeding patches. The Ozouga research site, located in the northern sector of the park, was founded in 2005 and in 2017 we began systematic focal behavioural data collection with the Rekambo community of chimpanzees. Loango is also diverse in terms of habitat the Ozouga study site comprises a mosaic of different habitat types including coastal forests and savannah in the west, multiple lowland swamps fed by a lagoon in the east, and heterogeneous tropical rainforest throughout. 1991) also in Gabon, Loango is one of the sites across tropical Africa where these two species share the same resources and where there is the chance to directly study their unique sympatric adaptations. 1996), in the Republic of Congo or Lopé (Tutin & Fernandez 1993 Tutin et al. In addition to sites like Goualougo/Mondika (Morgen & Sanz 2006), Nouabalé-Ndoki (Kuroda et al. Loango National Park is a safe haven for numerous endangered species, including two of the African great apes, the central chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes troglodytes) and the western lowland gorilla ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla). I will describe the Loango field site, summarise the two encounters and discuss our hypotheses on why these events took place. These attacks were unlike previous interactions observed between the two sympatric apes and ultimatly resulted in the death of two gorilla infants. During these encounters the gorillas counter attacked and defended themselves using contact aggressions and displays. In 2019, in Loango National Park, Gabon, we observed two lethal coalitionary attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas, with each attack lasting approximatly an hour and involving tactile threats, coalitionary displays and physical attacks from chimpanzees towards gorillas.
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