Wow, things are getting wilder than usual in the animal kingdom! Believe it or not, chimps and gorillas have been living chill for many, many years. But back in February 2019, stuff got real in Gabon’s Loango National Park that left researchers from Osnabrück University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany totally shook.
As they were studying the usual behavior of the chimps in the park, they caught sight of quite the scene – more than 20 chimps went off on five innocent western lowland gorillas. This aggressive gang of chimps, out of nowhere, decided to harass a gorilla troupe that included a silverback, three adult females and a baby.
What’s more, the fight went on for almost an hour – yeah, really! Unfortunately, the baby gorilla, stuck in the madness, paid the ultimate price. The poor little one was captivated and later beaten to death by these rogue chimps. Oh man, the animal kingdom can be a tough place!
Man, we were all in for a nasty surprise when the same horrifying scene played out again in December that year. It happened right there in that same Central African park. This time, things got even more intense with 27 chimps challenging seven gorillas. The brawl went on for nearly 79 minutes and tragically another baby gorilla got killed. Now, we can’t say for sure if it was the same chimps as the last time. But it leaves us scratching our heads – what pushed these guys to such brutal attacks? To figure it out, we gotta delve deep into the complex history and bonds between these two species.
According to Live Science, usually chimps and gorillas get along just fine when they bump into each other in Central Africa’s rainforests. The two species of apes don’t cross paths too often, and when they do, it’s mainly in search of fruit from the same trees. The fascinating part of this is that even then, they don’t bicker or fight.
However, chimps aren’t so tolerant when it comes to their own kind. They’re fiercely territorial and have been known to kill other chimps from rival groups.
The silverback sure was tossing some chimps around, clearly trying to defend himself and his buddies. Even after hurting a few chimps, things didn’t go his way though. In the end, the chimps managed to snatch the group’s baby and sadly, beat it to death.
Scientitsts were actually tracking these exact chimps for a long project looking into their behaviors in Gabon’s Loango National Park, when they witnessed the first gorilla killing. The chimp pack was just returning from a territory check.
Looks like food rivalry might be behind these attacks. You know how chimps and gorillas don’t have much fruit to munch on during February and December? Yeah, that’s when these fights happened. They’re all after that same piece of fruit, making things a bit tense.
And don’t even get me started on climate change. It’s messing with the fruit supply in the Gabon rainforest, which doesn’t help at all. Fewer fruits could mean even more brawls. The struggle is real, folks.
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