He lived alone on the outskirts of chimp society for years, only being observed by researchers in the field once or twice a year.Ĭhimpanzee groups at Fongoli are fairly isolated, so Foudouko’s only chance of finding a mate was to rejoin the group. In 2007, Mamadou was severely injured and separated from the group for weeks, returning frail and holding a lower rank in the social hierarchy.īecause Foudouko maintained an alliance with his now-weak partner, he was ostracised and then ousted by the others. As alpha male, he was “somewhat of a tyrant”, Pruetz says.įoudouko gained alpha status in his late teens and ruled alongside his right-hand chimp, Mamadou, the group’s beta male. Thirteen years ago, Foudouko reigned over one of the chimp clans at the Fongoli study site, part of the Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project. In Senegal, female chimpanzees are poached to provide infants for the pet trade. She suggests that human influence may have caused this skewed gender ratio that is likely to have been behind this attack. Jill Pruetz at Iowa State University, who has been studying this group of chimpanzees in south-eastern Senegal since 2001, agrees. That seems to be a key factor here,” says Wilson. “When you reverse that and have almost two males per every female - that really intensifies the competition for reproduction. “Why do these coalitions sometimes succeed, but not very often? It’s at the heart of this tension between conflict and cooperation, which is central to the lives of chimpanzees and even to our own,” he says.Ĭhimps usually live in groups with more adult females than males, but in the group with the murder it was the other way round. These intragroup killings are rare, but Michael Wilson at the University of Minnesota says they are a valuable insight into chimp behaviour such as male coalition building. Read more: Gang of chimpanzees kills their alpha male
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