Scientists studying chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest of Uganda noticed the creatures seem to be administering a sort of first aid.
Wild chimps are specifically seeking out plants with medicinal properties for injuries. And the chimps are not just self-medicating — they also appear to treat one another’s wounds.
A new study from Uganda’s Budongo Forest draws on decades of data suggesting chimps understand the specific medicinal properties of certain plants and will go out of their way to treat the maladies of their peers.
Lead researcher and primatologist Elodie Freymann spent eight months studying the chimps with a focus on what plants they consumed when sick. She later expanded her research to include topical treatments.
“We started really paying attention to how some of these plants were used traditionally in human medicinal knowledge systems and which bioactive properties they’ve been shown in the past to have,” Freymann said. “We found that several of these plants the chimpanzees are using actually have traditional uses that are specifically relevant to wound healing.”
The study incorporates logbook entries from previous studies in the forest going back to the early 1990s.
When looking through the notebook in the field station, where local researchers write down unusual behaviors, Freymann collected all the entries about wound care.
“When all of that information was amalgamated, one of the patterns that popped up, in addition to these self-directed wound care behaviors, we also found seven different cases of chimpanzees actually helping to treat the wounds or injuries of others in their community,” Freymann said.
Self-medication is one thing, but for a chimp to go out of its way to help another chimp suggests something more akin to empathy, the capacity to understand or share in the feelings of one another.
Freymann expected the wound care behavior to happen between mothers and babies or closely related family members, but that wasn’t the case.
“We found that there was actually lots of cases of chimps helping unrelated members of their community,” ”Freymann said, “which has sort of more implications for empathy being involved or some form of attentiveness to the health related needs of others, and then the ability to transfer the skills that one might apply to oneself to others.”
Researchers still don’t know if the behavior is instinctual or learned.
Humans share more than 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. For Freymann, studying chimpanzees is humbling.
“I think that we have a tendency to think of ourselves as incredibly unique and incredibly more advanced than all of the other non-human animals that we share this planet with. And I think the more we study the behaviors of animals, the more we realize that there are cognitive abilities, there are skill sets, there are toolkits that we have in common with them,” she said. “We’re not as unique as we like to think.”
Many animals have knowledge of the natural world that humans don’t, since we no longer live in natural environments, Freymann said.
“I think that we have to start treating these animals more like our teachers,” she said.
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Wilder Fleming produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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