The world's largest known group of wild chimpanzees has split and been locked in a vicious civil war for the last eight years, according to researchers.
It is not clear exactly why the once close-knit community of Ngogo chimpanzees at Uganda's Kibale National Park are at loggerheads, but since 2018 the scientists have recorded 24 killings, including 17 infants.
These were chimps that would hold hands, lead author Aaron Sandel said. Now they're trying to kill each other. The study, published in the journal Science, says the intensity and duration of the violence may inform how early human conflict developed.
Sandel, an anthropologist from the University of Texas in the US, and co-director of the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project, points out that chimpanzees are very territorial and have hostile interactions with those from other groups. He mentioned that their aggression reflects a fear of strangers.
Initially, almost 200 Ngogo chimpanzees coexisted harmoniously, with divisions only known as Western and Central groups. However, he first noticed a rift in June 2015 when the Western chimpanzees were chased away by the Central group. This pattern escalated into a six-week avoidance period followed by more aggressive encounters.
Since the emergence of the two distinct groups in 2018, targeted attacks by the Western group on the Central group have resulted in the deaths of multiple individuals, suggesting resource competition and hierarchy changes as potential causes.
Researchers identified three catalysts affecting this violent shift: the unexplained deaths of several key group members in 2014, a change in the alpha male in 2015, and a respiratory epidemic in 2017 that claimed the lives of many chimps.
These findings urge a reevaluation of how humans understand conflict, suggesting that relational dynamics could play a significant role even in the absence of constructs like religion or politics.
James Brooks, a researcher at the German Primate Center, highlighted the importance of learning from such group-based behaviors, emphasizing that understanding non-human societies can yield insights into human interactions and conflicts.
