Science Correspondent, BBC News
Uganda’s chimpanzy was observed by using medicinal plants in various ways to treat open wounds and other injuries.
Oxford University scientists, who work with the local teams of Budongo Forest, photographed and wrote animals using plants for first aid to themselves and sometimes each other.
Their research is based on the discovery of chimpanzees finding and eating certain plants for their own treatment.
Scientists also edited decades of scientific observation and created a catalog of a variety of methods that chimpanzees use “forest first aid”.
Researchers say that this study, published in the Frontier Journal of Ecology and Evolution, further increases the evidence that primates, including chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas, use natural pharmaceuticals in various ways to maintain health in the wild.
Elodie Freymann, a senior researcher, explained that “the chimpanzee has a full behavior repertoire used when chimpanzees are sick or injured in the wild to treat themselves and maintain hygiene.”
“Some of them include the use of plants found here,” she explained. “Chimpanzy surrounds them in the wound or chewing plants and applying the chewed ingredients to open injuries.”
The researchers were very young and injured their mother’s body by studying the scene of the female chimpanzee chewy plant ingredients.
They also found that chimpanzee records cared for wounds of other animals that were not related. “This is especially exciting because it adds evidence that wild chimpanzees have the ability of empathy.
Some of the hundreds of written observations studied by Dr. Freymann and her colleagues came from the logbook in the field station in the forest site in the northwest of Campala.
This record of this anecdote evidence goes back to the 1990s. Local field staff, researchers and visitors explained the interesting behavior they observed.
A book that stabs the leaves for the injury is a story that helps other chimpanzees to get rid of the mud from the limbs.
Surprisingly, there is a hygiene habit like humans. One note describes chimpanzees using leaves using leaves after bowel movements.
The researcher’s team confirmed some of the plants they ate when the chimpanzee pursued and injured. Scientists took the samples of the plant and tested them and found most antimicrobial characteristics.
Chimpanzy is not the only non -human apes with clear knowledge of vegetable medicine. A recent study shows a wild Oru achan who heals the wounds using chewy leaf materials.
Scientists think that if you study this wild monkey behavior and understand more of the plants used when chimpanzees are sick or injured, it can help you search for new medicines.
Dr. Freymann told the BBC NEWS, “The more we learn about chimpanzee behavior and intelligence, the more we understand how well we actually know about the natural world.
“If you go down from this forest without food in this forest, you are doubtful if you can survive for a long time if you are injured or sick.”
“But chimpanzy thrives here because you know how to approach the secret of this place and how to find everything you need to survive in the surrounding environment.”
