Recently, in 2019, scientists recorded a chimpanzee attempting to crack a tortoise open! The chimp was sitting on a tree branch and smashing the tortoise’s shell against it, with hopes to get to its meat. Stuff like honey, bird eggs, and small lizards in chimps’ diet probably isn’t going to shock you, but these primates also actively hunt bigger mammals, including monkeys, antelopes, bushpigs, and even baboons! For a long time, chimps were thought to be herbivorous, but in recent decades scientists have recorded chimps eating a wide variety of animal-based foods. Insects aren’t the only thing that makes chimpanzees omnivorous. They sometimes even use sticks as tools to fish these insects out of their nests! However, insects make up just a few percent of their diet. InsectsĬhimps also eat insects, primarily ants, and termites. These apes are also smart enough to use rocks for cracking kola and panda nuts open, making it possible to eat them. Plant-Based FoodsĬhimps eat basically every type of plant-based food, including roots, stems, leaves, blossoms, seeds, and even bark. However, most studies have found that chimps like eating various types of figs, and this single fruit amounts to about half of their total diet. However, here are the main categories of food all chimps eat: Fruitsįruits, including apples, bananas, berries, oranges, and mangoes constitute the biggest part of the chimpanzee diet. The exact number and kind of food chimps eat depends on their location. While most people think that chimpanzees are herbivores, they’re actually omnivores, which means that they eat both, plant and animal-based foods.Īs a result, they have an incredibly varied diet, and the number of different foods they eat is humongous even when compared to other omnivores.Īccording to some studies, chimps eat as many as 500 different food items! That’s a much more diverse diet than most of us eat. That’s why in this article, we’re going to talk about all subspecies as a whole. There are over 50,000 Western chimpanzees living in the wild, primarily in countries located in West Africa, including Ghana, Senegal, Guinea, and Mali.ĭespite some minor differences, all chimpanzee subspecies are very similar and mostly differ by what region of Africa they inhabit. For example, Western chimpanzees are known to throw rocks at trees for no apparent reason. This is the most divergent chimpanzee subspecies, exhibiting many behaviors and characteristics that haven’t been observed in other subspecies. They’re the stockiest subspecies, having the usual weight of up to 154 lb (70 kg), but being the shortest, growing up to 4 ft 3 in (130 cm) tall. This is the least populous subspecies, and only several thousand individuals are found in Nigeria and Cameroon.
They inhabit several countries in Central Africa, including Uganda and Rwanda. This is the most populous chimpanzee subspecies, with estimates ranging from 180,000 to 250,000 individuals living in the wild. They’re documented to frequently raid the habitat of western lowland gorillas, even killing their juvenile offspring. This is the second-most populous chimpanzee subspecies, with over 140,000 individuals Inhabiting the Central African Republic, Gabon, and Cameroon. It might sound like a long while ago, but other great apes, like orangutans and gorillas, have split off way earlier than that.Īs a result, chimps and humans are sister species, but there are actually several sub-species of chimpanzees: Central Chimpanzees Humans split from the last common ancestor with chimpanzees about 5 million years ago. They’re incredibly intelligent and social, living in large communities that sometimes approach 150 individual chimps.
How Often and How Much Do Chimpanzees Eat?Ĭhimpanzees are one of the great ape species, males growing up to 4 ft 11 in (150 cm) tall and weighing up to 154 lb (70 kg), while females are slightly smaller.
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