What kind of food do chimpanzees eat

But fruits themselves are patchy. Partially lapsed vegetarians, chimps eat meat. Seven kinds of primates, including their favorite, red colobus monkeys Procolobus rufomitratus tephrosceles are on the menu as are three other mammal species. Three percent of the average chimp diet comes from meat. On average, nine days a year are meat days for chimps.

Bonobos appear to eat even less meat than chimps. A recent study of the carbon and nitrogen isotopes in bonobos placed bonobos at a trophic level slightly lower than one antelope species. Different chimps eat different diets as a function of what they find, just as our ancestors would have eaten different foods depending on just where they lived as well as other factors. If there are no fig trees, chimps do not eat figs. Studies of chimp diets based on carbon and nitrogen isotopes have found some chimps appear to eat exclusively plants, whereas some individuals feed a little higher on the food chain.

Some species must eat a specific mix of foods to survive; chimps are not one of those species. Interestingly, most of my friends seem to have eaten ants and termites too which, friends, makes you weird too. Ants and termites have chitinous exoskeletons. No one seems to know if chimpanzees have any special ability to digest chitin.

But there is more than chitin to these insects, particularly if one can find a fat and juicy queen. Chimps at Kibale ate dirt. Gorillas eat wood and the occasional stone. For apes more of the forest is edible than one would guess. But figs, I'll reiterate, are everywhere in the life of chimps, bonobos and other apes. We tend to think of the megafauna as being the group of species that shaped humanity, but it seems as reasonable to postulate we were shaped by figs.

Like the fruits themselves, we grew out of their trees. You are unlikely to eat like a chimpanzee eats. If you are the average American, you eat more meat and more simple sugar2. Everything is raw and uncooked, so it has 3-times more nutrients than cooked foods. Everything is pureed and blended, so that more nutrients will be absorbed by the body. For more information, please visit www. You are here: Home » News » Article. Chimp Food. Do Chimpanzees hold the key to what we should be eating?

The Team Our Board. Annual Reports. All cool stuff Media Inquiries. Get in Touch Book a Presentation. From the field. Great Apes. Our Champions. Youth Power. Like humans, chimps have opposable thumbs to help them grasp branches or grab a bite to eat, as well as fingernails and toenails. Chimpanzees inhabit tropical rainforest, and lowland and mountain forests in western and Central Africa.

Everything tastes good! Chimpanzees eat a wide variety of food. Scientists have recorded about 80 different items chimps eat, including seeds, fruit, leaves, bark, honey, flowers, and insects. This makes up most of their diet. However, chimpanzees also hunt other wildlife, like monkeys or small antelope, for meat. Feeding is usually an individual activity, but sometimes chimps look for food together. Clever primates.

Chimpanzees are famous for using tools to get food. They often strip a branch of its leaves and then dip it in an ant or termite hill to get the insects inside. When water is scarce, chimps chew leaves so they are soft and sponge-like—this allows them to then soak up rainwater inside of tree holes. All in the family.