The former leader of 30 plus western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) living in Fongoli, a 10-square-mile patch of savanna in southeastern Senegal” was murdered by five young males and some flesh consumed by the mother of one of the five.
The murdered chimp was named Foudouko. He was beaten to death with sticks and rocks. He was one of just 9 known chimpanzees that were killed by one of their own, instead of a neighboring group.
There are nine known cases where a tribe of chimpanzees has killed one of their adult males, as opposed to killing a member of a neighboring tribe. Anectodal evidence suggests Foudouko was killed over competition for mates, as the group had a lopsided 2 males for every female. One researcher noted that the ratio was so out of whack because poachers target females for their infants to be sold in the pet trade.
It was a grisly sight: a murdered chimpanzee, his body beaten, bloodied—and partially cannibalized—by members of his former social group.
Researchers who found the gruesome scene in Senegal in 2013 knew that chimpanzees are no strangers to lethal violence. At every chimpanzee site that’s been studied for more than a decade, scientists have observed conflicts that end in death.
But killing within a community is rare.
The incident—described recently in the International Journal of Primatology and whose aftermath was caught on video—is just the ninth recorded case of a chimpanzee community killing one of its own.
“It was incredibly hard to watch,” says study co-author Jill Pruetz, an Iowa State University anthropologist and National Geographic Society grantee. “I was really disturbed for about three days [afterward], as if you had a falling-out with a friend.”
The story was on my news feed today, and I missed it at the time (February 2017) of the publish date. As you recall, we were all pretty distracted at the time. I was marching to the gates of Mar-A-Lago, for example.
Thirteen years ago, Foudouko reigned over one of the chimp clans at the Fongoli study site, part of the Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project. As alpha male, he was “somewhat of a tyrant”, Pruetz says.
Foudouko gained alpha status in his late teens and ruled alongside his right-hand chimp, Mamadou, the group’s beta male. In 2007, Mamadou was severely injured and separated from the group for weeks, returning frail and holding a lower rank in the social hierarchy.
Because Foudouko maintained an alliance with his now-weak partner, he was ostracised and then ousted by the others. He lived alone on the outskirts of chimp society for years, only being observed by researchers in the field once or twice a year.
Chimpanzee groups at Fongoli are fairly isolated, so Foudouko’s only chance of finding a mate was to rejoin the group. By 2013, Mamadou had regained beta male status and his brother, David, had taken over as alpha. They accepted Foudouko back into the fold, although other members of the group still chased him off periodically.
“We just happened to have at the time five young males all coming up in the hierarchy and those guys together didn’t want to let Foudouko back in,” says Pruetz. “He was trying to come back in at a high rank, which was ultimately a foolish thing to do on his part.”
Our simian tyrant would not share the similar fate as Foudouko. His flesh is full of decay, dangerous fat levels, and the orange dye could cause cancer if consumed. /s
Warning, this video contains graphic material.
x xYouTube Video