Random Ways Chimpanzees Are Just as Brutal as Humans (12 items)

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  (#1) They Sometimes Cannibalize Their Murder Victims

  In 2017, a group of chimps in Senegal organized a hit on their much-maligned alpha male, Foudouko. A tyrannical leader, Foudouko had been ostracized by his group after he maintained contact with his right-man chimp, Mamadou, despite Mamadou's drop in social standing. When it came time to take Foudouko out, both males and females from the group aggressively beat him – throwing rocks at him, beating him with sticks, and jumping on him for a long time after his pulse ceased. Then, after he was dead, some began cannibalizing his body, which is both incredibly gruesome and fairly uncommon in the realm of chimpanzee hits.
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  (#2) Male Chimpanzees Wage A Campaign Of Violence Against Females In Order To Mate

  Male chimpanzees are incredibly violent toward females – kicking them, biting them, slapping them, and pulling out their hair – in order to demonstrate their own sexual fitness and virility. Because of this, male chimps who asserted sexual aggression usually were the ones to successfully reproduce, meaning that aggressiveness was passed on to future generations. Researchers are studying whether there's any link between this phenomenon in chimps to sexual aggression in men. 
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  (#3) They Commit Infanticide And Engage In Organized Baby Murder

  To ensure their DNA is passed on to future generations, male chimps will kill babies sired by other males. To combat this, female chimps are known to mate with several chimps at once to purposely conceal the paternity of her child. 

  A 2007 study published in ScienceDaily found that female chimpanzees also partake in chilling baby murders, cannibalizing the infants after they kill them. The scientists found that “resident” females would organize murder parties, attacking and killing the young of females who were new, or “strangers,” to the group. The scientists involved in the research reported hearing the shrill screams and wails of the “strange” females in the night as their young were killed and eaten before them. Although they don’t yet have definitive evidence, scientists believe that these female-coordinated attacks might be the result of changing sex ratios within the group, which increases mating, resource, and reproduction competition.
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  (#4) Chimps Attack Humans In Captivity Only After Studying Them

  This one’s really creepy. According to an article published in Scientific American, we have a lot more to fear from chimps in captivity than we do from those in the wild. In the wild, chimpanzees are frightened of humans. They don’t know what humans are about or how strong we are, so they keep their distance. However, chimps that have been raised by or lived among humans have the cognitive ability to notice tension between themselves and a certain person, as well as the difference between their strength and human strength. (It’s a MASSIVE difference, by the way). Chimps are kept behind bars to protect humans, and even from behind bars chimps will attack, biting off many a human finger in the process.
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  (#5) They Take Part In Multi-Year Wars

  Jane Goodall, the legendary primate researcher who spent 55 years studying chimpanzee behavior in Tanzania, noticed something strange happening between two chimpanzee communities in the 1970s. After a series of incredibly violent attacks between the two groups - which had formerly been a single, unified group - Goodall realized the two chimp communities were actually at war.

  That war, “The Gombe Chimpanzee War,” lasted for more than four years and resulted in the death of every single male in one of the two groups. It finally ended when the victorious tribe officially took over the territory formerly occupied by their enemies. At first scientists doubted Goodall’s conclusion, accusing her of assigning human traits and activities to a non-human species. However, now, in light of her research as well as subsequent findings, many scientists agree that chimpanzee societies naturally engage in prolonged warfare.
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  (#6) They Perform Lavish Rituals To Rise In Power

  When a chimpanzee wants to demonstrate dominance to another member of his group, he spares no expense. He begins by standing up straight, bristling his hair, and morphing his face into a fierce, compressed expression. From there, he starts to sway back and forth, tearing vegetation out of the ground, ripping branches off of trees, and picking up and hurling the rocks in his path.

  If his potential victim isn’t intimidated by this display, he will begin screaming and running full force at the chimp to whom he’s proving his superiority. And if that chimp doesn’t get out of the way, the dominant chimp will slap him hard while at a full sprint, and a massive all-out brawl can ensue between the two. Whoever rises from the melee victorious also rises in tribal rank.
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  (#7) They Perform Mob-Style Hits

  Chimpanzees love a good group-on-individual attack. In fact, mob-style hits are one way chimps remove powerful leaders they no longer like. In 2014, the Washington Post ran a story that described the assassination of a chimp leader named Pimu. Apparently, when his underlings could no longer take his leadership, four of them banded together and ambushed him, beating Pimu to death with their hands and feet. Although scientists don’t know if his body was then cemented and thrown into the Hudson River, one could imagine that Tony Soprano would be proud. 
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  (#8) They’re Natural Born Killers

  For a long time, a debate about the natural violence of chimpanzees raged in the scientific community. Are chimps naturally violent? Or do they become that way after disruptive contact with humans? On one side of this debate, scientists believe that murder, warfare, cannibalism, and organized beatings come naturally to chimpanzees. On the other side, scientists believe that human destruction of the environment and chimpanzee resources has increased a chimp's need to compete for ever-dwindling supplies. In light of this disagreement, scientist Michael Wilson performed an 18-year study on multiple chimp communities, observing their murder rates, human contact, and intergroup violence. His finding? It all comes naturally. In fact, “‘[this] pattern of evidence suggests that chimpanzees just do this [killing] naturally,’ says Wilson.”
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  (#9) They Trade Meat For Sexual Favors

  For a long time, scientists considered chimps to be the “nicer” version of humans. Part of this thinking involved the belief that chimpanzees were vegetarians. Turns out they aren’t nicer and they aren’t vegetarians. In fact, a researcher from the University of Southern California named Craig Stanford noticed that male chimpanzees go hunting when they need something special. They gather lots of meat for their ladies, for example, during the mating season. And they’ll reward their sexual partner's effort with a nice steak after the deed is done. According to Stanford, the sex-for-meat trade deal helps explain why male chimps “stop foraging” and suddenly go on massive “rampages” during the mating season.
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  (#10) They’re Scary Strong

  This one isn’t really evidence of a chimp's brutality, but it is pretty scary. Chimpanzees have ridiculous upper body strength. In fact, chimpanzee males have been measured as having five times the arm strength of an adult human male. Pound for pound, their muscles are just much more developed than ours. Their hand strength is also unbelievable - they can rip off a human face with ease. This strength, combined with their long, sharp canine teeth, makes an attacking chimpanzee nearly impossible for an unarmed human to fend off. Stories of pet chimpanzee attacks attest to this brutal fact.
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  (#11) They Organize Raiding Parties

  Young male chimpanzees have been described as acting like “frat boys” who happen to wage war every 10 to 14 days. For the most part, they like to hang out, play fight, and make a lot of noise. However, it isn’t all fun, games, and beer bongs for young male chimps. They also form highly organized raiding parties and regularly launch attacks on neighboring groups. These “raiding parties” patrol their own territory, enter enemy territory in search of solitary individuals that they can kill, and attack and kill groups of mother and baby chimpanzees that they might happen to stumble upon. According to primatologists, they do so as a means of ensuring basic survival of the fittest. In competitions for limited resources and control of vital territory, these young chimps are the cavalry.
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  (#12) They Continue Beating A Body Long Past Its Death

  According to primatologist Michael Wilson from the University of Minnesota, chimps likely don't understand "death" in the same terms that humans do. He says that, in fact, "[it] seems unlikely that they know about using pulse or breath to make sure something’s dead." As a result, chimps will continue desecrating a body long past its expiration. This means that a group of chimps will continue stomping on, throwing rocks at, or beating a body with sticks despite its (to human eyes) clear lifelessness.

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