In the upcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, chimps and other primates rise up in an epic war against humans.
Back in 1971, it was chimp-on-chimp violence that surprised primatologist Jane Goodall, who watched as a civil war erupted between two factions of a group of chimpanzees in Tanzanias Gombe Stream National Park.
This is how a chimp attack usually goes down: A group of males will go on patrol, listening quietly near the border of their territory. They discover something. If its a similarly large group, there is often a loud screaming match, but little violence. Think of extremely hairy frat guys acting tough at a party.
Occasionally, however, there will be a smaller group or a lone chimpanzee. The males will often rush in, hold the chimp down, and the group will bite, hit, kick and drag its body.
Its really horrible and violent, Joseph Feldblum, a Ph.D. student in evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, told NBC News. He compared it to behavior you would associate with angry toddlers trying to destroy a toy.
It does not happen every day, but its not exactly rare either. What is unusual is an entire group of chimpanzees splitting in two, and then one group eliminating the other over a four-year period of violence.
Jane Goodall, chimpanzee researcher and naturalist, observes through glass some of Taronga Zoo's 25 member chimpanzee colony in Sydney on Aug. 31, 1997.
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Scientists have long debated the catalyst of the civil war. Maybe the group Goodall was observing was really two groups all along, which would make the violence less strange. Or maybe the conflict was prompted by a power vacuum, like when a dictator dies in a hierarchal society.
Hoping to clarify what happened, Feldblum and his team, consisting of Sofia Manfredi, Ian C. Gilby and Anne E. Pusey, used several programs to analyze the data from Goodalls copious notes.
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Social-Networking Technology Unlocks Mystery of Chimp Civil War