Image by Nicolas Richoffer

On October 1, Jane Goodall passed away from natural causes. She was a very memorable person known for her love of chimpanzees. She was a firm believer that chimpanzees had personalities too. She studied them for 60 years. She said, “I think it’s now generally accepted that we are not the only beings on the planet with personalities, minds, and emotions. That we are part of and not separated from the rest of the animal kingdom.”

Proof of Tool Making

One of Jane Goodall’s amazing discoveries was that Chimpanzees make tools out of nature. When Goodall went out to observe the chimps, she noticed them stripping the leaves from sticks and using those sticks to stick in an insect mound. This happened in October 1960. Goodall was 26 at the time. She was in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park. 

She was using her binoculars to research. She witnessed an older chimp putting a stick in a mound and eating things off the stick. When the chimp left, Goodall went to the area he was in and copied what he was doing. Minus eating the bugs. Later on, she witnessed a chimp taking leaves off a stick and sticking it in the mound. When she saw that, she realized that a chimp had made a tool so they could eat bugs. This was a great discovery because it was the first time seeing an animal making a tool. 

Goodall has witnessed other tools being made at other times as well. One time, Goodall witnessed a chimp use a rock to smash a fruit open. They also used rocks to help them get into nuts. Another time, she witnessed them create a sponge-like object to soak up water; They chewed up some leaves and made it into a wad so they could soak up water from nooks or crannies.

Herbivore Myth

Image by Alain Houle (Harvard University)

Goodall was the first to discover that chimpanzees aren’t herbivores; they are omnivores. Goodall observed a chimpanzee hunting bush pigs and tiny mammals. She observed them hunting in Gombe, Tanzania. Before this discovery, everyone believed chimps to be herbivores. 

This happened in 1960, when she saw them hunting for small mammals. She witnessed a chimp eating a dead animal. Then she witnessed them actually hunting for small animals. Although the meat that they consume is a very small part of their diet. Roughly 5-8% of their diet, according to the Jane Goodall Institute New Zealand. They still consume lots of fruits, nuts, and insects. This discovery is very useful in learning more about animal behavior. 

When the chimps are hunting for small animals, they share some of their kills with other members of their group. I find this to be so surprising. I would think that if you caught it, you would just eat it and not share. This shows that chimps can be kind to other chimps. 

Chimp Wars

Image by Owuor Jack

Another way that chimps are similar to humans is that they also fight with each other and form groups that fight against each other. While observing the chimps, Goodall noticed that a community of chimps split into two groups. One group was six males, three females, and their kids. The other group was all the other males of their group. 

They fought each other for years, resulting in some of them dying. The civil war lasted from 1974-1978. The reason behind the war was power, resources, and territory. Before discovering this, people thought that humans were the only ones to kill our own kind over territory and other reasons.