Huge chimpanzee population thriving in remote Congo forest
Huge chimpanzee population thriving in remote Congo forest
Scientists believe the group is one of the last chimp 'mega-cultures', sharing a unique set of customs and behaviour
Damian Carrington February 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/07/chimpanzees-congo-forest
In one of the most dangerous regions of the planet, against all odds, a huge yet mysterious population of chimpanzees appears to be thriving – for now. Harboured by the remote and pristine forests in the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and on the border of the Central African Republic, the chimps were completely unknown until recently – apart from the local legends of giant apes that ate lions and howled at the moon.
But researchers who trekked thousands of kilometres through uncharted territory and dodged armed poachers and rogue militia, now believe the group are one of the last thriving chimp "mega-cultures".
"This is one of the few places left on Earth with a huge continuous population of chimps," says Cleve Hicks, a primatologist based at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, who says the group is probably the largest in Africa. "We estimate many thousands of individuals, perhaps tens of thousands." A unique set of customs and behaviour is shared by the apes across a vast area of 50,000 sq km, revealing how they live naturally.
The unusually large chimps of the Bili-Uele forest have been seen feasting on leopard and build ground nests far more often than other chimps, as well as having a unique taste for giant African snails, whose shells they appear to pound open on rocks or logs. .................
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The hippos of the DRC were all but wiped out this way.
