Chimp & See Talk

Dodge's sniffing habit

  • Snorticus by Snorticus

    Dodge does a lot of sniffing/smelling the ground and objects in his environment. Is it a personality quirk? He must be doing it for some purpose though. Has any one noticed other chimps doing this in CD 8 or elsewhere?

    Sorry for this messy post, I only have access to ipad while I'm away from home. It's hard to format on ipad and also it will not play sound on clips. I'm reading when I can what's going on but can't properly classify without sound  Miss the chimps and the discussions, but other obligations have to be met right now.


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  • Snorticus by Snorticus

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  • AnLand by AnLand moderator

    Yes, we discussed it here about a chimp at Muddy Frost: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/boards/BCP000000j/discussions/DCP0000724. We discussed whether the field team, who was there the day before, was responsible for that alertness. I've seen it elsewhere too.

    I think, the sniffing on fruits before eating them is normal and done by everybody.

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  • Boleyn by Boleyn moderator in response to AnLand's comment.

    😃...right...even by human!

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  • Snorticus by Snorticus

    Yes, I remember that discussion we had. Dodge sniffs his environment quite often though in way that seems not out of caution or fear-alertness as with that female, but rather as if he is gathering information all the time by sniffing things. It is done with a rather casual attitude.

    ACP0005643----sniffs at base of buttress tree

    ACP0005a9m---stands, sniffs ground

    ACP000587i---stands, sniffs a spot, then sits on it

    ACP000587q---sitting, sniffs the sapling he is holding on to, exits

    ACP000572t---Dodge is traveling here, pauses to sniff ground, walks on, sniffs ground again, continues traveling

    ACP000572u---still traveling, sniffs ground, possibly picks something up, continues traveling

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  • jwidness by jwidness moderator

    I don't have any particular insight into why he's sniffing all the time, but I did really enjoy this collection of videos of him sniffing things 😃

    Thanks for putting it together!

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  • AnLand by AnLand moderator in response to Snorticus's comment.

    Yes, I would rather see this as normal. Did you check whether the field team (or others) were there shortly before? I think, we did not see a single leopard at CD-8, but that might be another explanation. But in general, I think, they are sniffing to get information on a regular basis and we did not see it so often here, because people are traveling so much and so fast. We've seen it before and the female with kids I posted above was clearly more nervous than usual. For fruits, we had it several times.

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  • ksigler by ksigler moderator

    The first one is my favorite. 😃 I think he's just trying to see who has been around, or where other (possibly female) chimps from his group are. Not necessarily a threat or even another species. He does seem to get very close to things to sniff as opposed to just smelling the air... maybe he doesn't have a good sense of smell, or relies on it heavily so he likes to get a good whiff.

    The one where he's sitting, stands, sniffs a different spot, then sits there... that seems deliberate and odd. If there's a reason for that, I'd be interested to know. The only thing I can think of is that it smelled like another chimp that he wanted to be near, or cover up their scent with his?

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  • Snorticus by Snorticus

    I hope a scientist will share some thoughts on this!

    ACP0005ckf was the first time I saw him in a clip and thought the sniffing was interesting and then he looks up and seems startled to notice the camera. (I would love to know what the animals are seeing as the camera in the plastic boxes is triggered & actually running on site.)

    ACP000587i I thought it interesting too that he sniffed a very close spot and gets up and sits on it very purposefully. But why?

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  • PauDG by PauDG scientist, moderator

    Hi everyone,

    as you know the sense of smell of wild animals are much more developed than our, and probably they are able to get information that even we can no imagine. But normally they sniff to know if there have been other animals there, to check to food before eating, to look for food under the ground...

    I found these two papers that talk about this:

    • Sniffing behaviors in Mahale chimpanzees: Although it is difficult for observers to determine how non-human primates use olfaction in a natural environment, sniffing is one clue. In this study, the sniffing behaviors of wild chimpanzees were
      divided into six categories, and sex differences were found in most categories. Males sniffed more fre-quently than females in sexual and social situations, while females sniffed more often during feeding and self-checking. Chimpanzees sniffed more frequently during the dry season than during the wet season, presumably due to the low humidity. This suggests that
      the environment affects olfactory use by chimpanzees and that chimpanzees easily gather new information from the ground via sniffing.

    • Wild Western Lowland Gorillas Signal Selectively Using Odor: Mammals communicate socially through visual, auditory and chemical signals. The chemical sense is the oldest sense and is shared by all organisms including bacteria. Despite mounting evidence for social chemo-signaling in humans, the extent to which it modulates behavior is debated and can benefit from comparative models of closely related hominoids. The use of odor cues in wild ape social communication has been only rarely explored. Apart from one study on wild chimpanzee sniffing, our understanding is limited to anecdotes. We present the first study of wild gorilla chemo-communication and the first analysis of olfactory signaling in relation to arousal levels and odor strength in wild apes. If gorilla scent is used as a signaling mechanism instead of only a sign of arousal or stress, odor emission should be context specific and capable of variation as a function of the relationships between the emitter and perceiver(s). Measured through a human pungency scale, we determined the factors that predicted extreme levels of silverback odor for one wild western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) group silverback. Extreme silverback odor was predicted by the presence and intensity of inter-unit interactions, silverback anger, distress and long-calling auditory rates, and the absence of close proximity between the silverback and mother of the youngest infant. Odor strength also varied according to the focal silverback's strategic responses during high intensity inter-unit interactions. Silverbacks appear to use odor as a modifiable form of communication; where odor acts as a highly flexible, context dependent signaling mechanism to group members and extra-group units. The importance of olfaction to ape social communication may be especially pertinent in Central African forests where limited visibility may necessitate increased reliance on other senses.

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  • yshish by yshish moderator in response to PauDG's comment.

    Thanks for the detailed reply, @PauDG

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  • Boleyn by Boleyn moderator in response to Snorticus's comment.

    could it be that Dodge is not sniffing in this video ACP000587i but merely checking the ground for ants? That's what I would do when sitting on the floor.

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  • AnLand by AnLand moderator in response to Boleyn's comment.

    I think, looking takes a bit longer and would include a bigger area of ground. And it is quite near the ground. I do not know about the visual field in chimps, but does he need to be so close to the ground to actually see something, even ants?

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  • Boleyn by Boleyn moderator in response to AnLand's comment.

    yeah, you might be right. I just wondered why he wanted to change his place. Was anything annoying him? To me it looked like he'd just quickly check the ground before sitting down again. Anyway, I like this guy particularly probably because he's handicapped so I pay a bit more attention to his behaviour.

    On the other hand I'm asking myself if I'm nuts - discussing sitting and sniffing habits from chimps .... 😃 😃

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  • ksigler by ksigler moderator in response to Boleyn's comment.

    You could be sniffing the sitting habits of chimps... that's a bit weirder, I think. 😉

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  • Boleyn by Boleyn moderator in response to ksigler's comment.

    LOL - I'll get there I suppose!

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  • Snorticus by Snorticus

    Chuckling at you guys 😃

    I like Dodge clips because there is no doubt about who the chimp is who is displaying whatever behavior we are discussing and even new people can contribute.

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  • ksigler by ksigler moderator in response to Snorticus's comment.

    Agreed, he's a bit of hero for this site. I'm still very curious how he could survive losing a limb.

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  • Snorticus by Snorticus

    I know - how did he not bleed out?!

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  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    When the chimps are snared they usually are strong enough to pull the snare away from whatever it is tied to. They can then walk around for years with the snares attached, it slowly digging into them deeper and deeper. The limb then dies off and then eventually falls off in most cases 😦

    Some examples here: http://ngogochimpanzeeproject.org/conservation/ and here: https://kibalechimpanzees.wordpress.com/snare-removal-program/

    The Ngogo facebook page also had this to share last year: https://www.facebook.com/NgogoChimps/photos/pb.360408664003178.-2207520000.1438987570./836749239702449/?type=3&theater

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  • ksigler by ksigler moderator

    Ugh, that's horrible, but it makes sense now. Good for Dodge. Thanks, @MimiA.

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  • Boleyn by Boleyn moderator in response to MimiA's comment.

    aww those poor chimps. Thanks for the links @MimiA. The movie about the snare removal program in Kibale is very interesting and a really good thing. And when I found the Link to the Jane Goodall Institute in Switzerland, it was clear to me, what to do next 😉.

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  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator in response to Boleyn's comment.

    The best way to donate to either the kibale or Ngogo projects is DIRECTLY on their website rather than through another NGO (like JGI) that way you know the money goes STRAIGHT to where you want it to 😃 You can find the donate links on both pages I linked to before - if it is not clear let me know and Iwould be happy to point you in the right direction!

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