Chimpanzees in Gabon’s Loango National Park have tortoises on their menu. For the first time, researchers have observed the great apes vigorously smashing forest hinge-back tortoises (Kinixys erosa) against tree trunks to try and crack open their shells and extract meat out of them. Sometimes, the chimps share the meat too, according to a study published in Scientific Reports.
“We have known for decades that chimpanzees feed on meat from a variety of animal species, but until now the consumption of reptiles has not been observed,” Tobias Deschner, a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and co-author of the study, said in a statement.
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