Today, on Endangered Species Day, we feature another African mammal that isn’t indigenous to South Africa.

Pan troglodytes

The Chimpanzee is considered to be humans’ closest living relative and watching them go about their business it is easy to recognise many of our own traits in them. Adults stand about a metre tall, with males weighing around 50kg and considerably more burly than the lighter (∼30kg) females.

Chimpanzees live in tropical forests and to a lesser extent some woodland associations, often venturing into adjacent grassland clearings when foraging. Fruit and seedpods make up a considerable portion of their diet but they are true omnivores, hunting and eating meat from a wide range of vertebrate sources. They’re among the few creatures that have learned to use tools for various jobs – such as using grass stalks to catch ants or using rocks to crush nuts – and these skills are often taught to others in the community. They construct “nests” using leaves and branches high up in the trees in which they sleep at night.

Communities of Chimpanzees may number between 15 and 125 members, occupying a home range that may extend over areas of up to 400km², although the whole community is rarely together in the same spot at the same time. These communities are organised along a strict hierarchy, with only the most dominant males having mating rights, which often leads to bloody fights. Females give birth to single babies (twins are very rare and seldom survive in the wild) after an 8 month gestation period, with intervals of 4 to 7 years between births as the babies grow slowly, are weaned at around 3 years of age and remain totally dependent on their mothers for the first 5 years of their lives, only becoming fully independent at around 7 or 8 years old. While male chimpanzees usually stay in the community in which they were born, females join other communities when they become sexually mature at around 12 years of age. They have a life expectancy of around 50 years.

Chimpanzees occur naturally in equatorial West and Central Africa, being distributed from Tanzania to Senegal. The IUCN considers it to be an endangered species, citing a declining population estimated at most around 299,000 in 2003. The Jane Goodall Institute established Chimp Eden in South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province in 2006 to care for chimpanzees rescued from the pet and bushmeat trades – an ongoing threat despite it being illegal to capture, trade or kill chimpanzees in all the countries where they are found.

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee female and baby

Chimpanzee baby (photo by Joubert)

Chimpanzee with baby

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee