Chimp & See Talk

Grooming chimps

  • Boleyn by Boleyn moderator

    I wonder why we do not see more chimps grooming each other? Isn't this something they do hours and hours during a day?

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  • akalan by akalan scientist

    Hi! Good question, the chimps do spend quite a bit of time grooming, can even be a couple hours in a day but most often it is interrupted with bouts of rest and play. We do not see this in our camera trap footage as much because often the places where we target our cameras to record are usually not the places where chimps choose to relax and groom. The one place where forest chimps do love to sit and groom and relax are fallen tree gaps where the sun shines in quite nicely through the canopy.

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  • LirSam by LirSam scientist

    That's a good question. Grooming time in chimpanzees varies across sites, age classes and sexes, with group size and resource availability influencing the distribution of grooming. On average, chimpanzees are observed to groom for approximately 8% of observation time, so you are right we would expect to see more grooming videos. But, to add on the previous answer, since grooming is a very intimate behaviour, perhaps, in the presence of a novel object such as the camera traps they are less likely to engage in grooming?

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  • Boleyn by Boleyn moderator

    Thank you Ammie and Liran, very interesting! I just remembered one place where I have seen a younger female (Sabirah) grooming an adult one (Taiga) here ACP000emlu. It's exactly such a place as described by you Ammie and we don't see many places like this.

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  • AnLand by AnLand moderator

    But might it be a factor in this is also that the chimps are not moving much during grooming? So, the camera is not triggered anymore once they started and before they leave.

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  • akalan by akalan scientist

    Good question Anland, however if they stay infront of the camera then the camera should get retriggered over and over again so this in theory should not stop it from being captured. But yes Boleyn that clip is very much what I am referring to. It is clear when chimpanzees groom that there is a great deal of trust involved, especially in grooming those delicate places 😉

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  • NuriaM by NuriaM scientist, moderator

    AnLand, it´s a good question, but the camera sensitivity is initially set to " high ", which means that even the smooth movement of a leaf could trigger it. Chimps move while grooming, and this movement should be enought to "catch the moment".

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